Chelsea caretaker manager Frank Lampard has given his backing to Raheem Sterling after previous comments from the England international used his coaching record to highlight issues with racism in English football. In 2020. Sterling appeared on BBC Newsnight, questioning how the likes of Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell were unable to secure top jobs in management while their former teammates Lampard and Steven Gerrard found opportunities.
"There's something like 500 players in the Premier League and a third of them are black and we have no representation in the hierarchy, no representation of us in the coaching staffs," Sterling said. "There's Steven Gerrard, your Frank Lampards, you have your Sol Campbells and you have your Ashley Coles.
"All had great careers, all played for England. At the same time, they've all respectfully done their coaching badges to coach at the highest level and the two that haven't been given the right opportunities are the two black former players." Lampard previously defended his record, but plenty has changed since.
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The former midfielder was dismissed by the Blues before joining Everton, where he was also removed from his post earlier this season. He has since made a shock return to Stamford Bridge and will now manage Sterling for the final few games before the end of the campaign before a new manager is hired.
Lampard was asked by the press whether those previous comments from the winger will need to be a topic of discussion, though he hit back and defended the statement, saying: "No. I don’t know Raheem that well. I played with him in England squads. In the period gone I’ve come across him a few times.
"I think he’s a young lad as we want out young men and women in the game to speak openly and honestly, and he’s not just spoken that one Newsnight interview you pulled out from two years ago; he’s spoken regularly on really good matters in how he sees. If I were to speak to him I would pat him on the back for being that way, whether he said a statement regarding myself or not.
"I understand he would do it from absolutely the right point and the right idea. And, of course from his eyes, my eyes as a 44-year-old coach here are different to Raheem Sterling’s eyes and I would be more than interested to hear what he sees about the world. That’s one of the joys working in football, the dressing room, the travel, the talk on the training ground. I’ve clearly got no problem with that."
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