A leading anti-racism campaigner has said that some people in the game will be pleased if Paul Ince loses his job at Blackburn Rovers. “There may be one or two people who have an agenda who feel that they want him to perform badly because he is a black manager,” Piara Power, of Kick It Out, said. “Without being paranoid, for some people his appointment was symbolic for the wrong reasons. There are people who like the established order and to have outsiders come into the fold is difficult to accept.

“No one is going to say, ‘We don’t want a black manager in football,’ but there is often a sense of maintaining the existing order. For some, the status quo is more important than change.”

Ince became the first black English manager to take charge of a Premier League club when he replaced Mark Hughes at Ewood Park in the summer. About 25 per cent of the players at England’s 92 league clubs are black, but there are only two black managers — Ince and Keith Alexander, of Macclesfield Town. The FA is so concerned by the lack of black managers in professional football that it has been approaching black former England players to try to convince them that they have a future in the game. “The significance of him being appointed was there for all to see,” Brendon Batson, the former West Bromwich Albion defender and managing director who works as a consultant for the FA, said. “Blackburn had an open process and they thought that he was the best person for the job irrespective of his colour and what it means to black managers who have ambitions of becoming managers. Maybe attitudes are changing in boardrooms.”

Some former players are convinced that football is institutionally racist at boardroom level, but Batson believes that race will not come into the equation if Blackburn decide to dismiss Ince.

“It’s a results game and if you don’t get results then you will come under fire,” he said. “I hope that Paul can turn it around because he has got something about him. I don’t think he has been under extra pressure because he is black. He has battling qualities and huge determination. He’s going through difficult times, but all managers go through difficult times and I hope things turn in his favour sooner rather than later.”