Tuesday 12 December 2017 11:59, UK
Liverpool CEO Peter Moore believes a fully-fledged Rooney Rule in English football would have a game-changing impact for BAME coaches.
There are just a handful of BAME managers across the leagues, despite non-white players constituting more than a quarter of all footballers.
There was a similar level of disparity in American Football prior to the introduction of the Rooney Rule in 2003 - a mandatory requirement for NFL franchises to interview at least one BAME candidate for head coaching positions.
Between 2007 and 2016 there were 10 Super Bowl teams with either a BAME head coach or general manager. Before 2007 there were none and at the time of the Rooney Rule's implementation there was just one non-white NFL head coach.
Sporting Equals chief executive Arun Kang recently called on football authorities to be brave and consider formally implementing the rule, and Moore believes such a move would change the landscape of English football.
He told Sky Sports News: "I watched this in the United States for the last 20 years in professional sports make a real difference to the diversity of the coaching candidate roster.
"You go back and look at coaches and managers 30 years ago - it was almost all white. What we learned in the United States is sometimes you need a form of affirmative action.
"The Rooney Rule forces candidates into that contention set.
"I think it [the Rooney Rule] would be phenomenal. If we come back and sit here 15 years from now, and we can look at the Premier League and we can see half of the 20 clubs have a manager or a head coach that is of colour, that come from diverse backgrounds - I think it would be superb."
Jurgen Klopp's men trained at Melwood on Monday ahead of the midweek visit of Alan Pardew's West Brom. And ahead of the session, the Liverpool squad made their annual Christmas visit to Alder Hey Children's hospital.
Klopp and Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson led the rest of the first-team squad around the wards, with the players splitting into groups in order to meet as many of the youngsters as possible.
They spent time chatting to patients and their families, and posed for photos and signed autographs. They also handed out gifts during their afternoon at the world-famous hospital, which treats 270,000 children each year.
