Panorama: Sol Campbell looking at Black unemployment

Like a number of footballers of his generation, Sol Campbell knows the good life. He spent 20 years playing football at the highest level; for Spurs, Arsenal and England. He knows lives in a multimillion pound Georgian house in fashionable Chelsea with his wife and young family.

However, it wasn’t always like that as Campbell explained in this week's Panorama programme. ‘If it wasn’t for football, I could have ended up like many others on my estate, out of work and in trouble. Football saved me.’ Now retired from the game he loves, Campbell embarked on a six-month mission to find out why are so many Black young men unemployed.

What he uncovered shocked him to the core, and in many ways should shame Britain too. Young Black men in Britain, particularly those from working-class backgrounds face inequality barriers, the likes of which no other ethnic group faces from the same starting point.

Two factors struck Campbell most of all: the cliché that if you become university educated in particular in an area of vocation, you are more likley to find work. And secondly, if you have the drive, and keep positive, then employers would eventually see your worth. In both cases, these long-held beliefs were often  untrue if you were Black.

Kyle Parris was the first in his family to go to university where he studied electrical and electronic engineering, the kind of vocation that you hear Ministers encouraging our young men and women to do. ‘We need more engineers and scientist’ they tell us, ‘not social workers’ However, for Kyle, still without work four years after finishing his engineering degree it seems it counted for nothing.

Abdi Haki Muhammad the young Somali in the programme was as enthusiastic as his Olympic compatriot Mo Farah even without any of Farah’s success. In fact, this young deserves a gold medal for remaining positive against a tide of employment rejection. He told Campbell that he had applied for more than 400 jobs without successfully getting one. “I want to work and I’m sure one day soon I’ll get something.”

Campbell wanted to see if these individuals were just unlucky, or they were part of a growing trend in the UK.

Jeremy Crook Director of BTEG told him,

“Sadly Sol, the figures tell a deeply depressing picture. In 2012, the unemployment rate for black young people was 49 per cent; 2.2 times higher than for white young people. Although unemployment has risen for all young people, the relatively far higher rates for young black people have been there for a long time.”

In a later press release, Crook also pointed out that: “Despite more than 53% of BME individuals going on to higher education, compared to 39% of the white community, that didn’t translate into these young men successfully moving into the job market.”

Campbell bravely also investigated a young man you had fallen foul of the criminal-justice system, but wanted to get his life back on track.

What Campbell viewed through the prism of this young man was that, not ever having a job, and only knowing how to make money through ‘other ways’, was not only life threatening,- one day the man turned up after being stabbed after an altercation,- but also that the lifestyle would see the man in and out of prison for his foreseeable life. Towards the end of the programme the young man was back behind bars having breached is a prison release order.

There was some good news. The young Somali  Abdi,finally got a job, moreover, at the most prestigious address in the UK, Buckingham Palace. Although it is only a seasonal job as a tour-guide for the hordes of tourists, Abdi hopes it might lead to other stuff .

Campbell’s journey had a profound impact on him, and one would hope on the establishment which could do so much more to tackle the persistent inequalities that holds back British Black talent, such as the young men in the programme.

I hope Sol Campbell continues this journey, particularly encouraging other Black footballers to use their influence and some of their riches to demand greater equality and support those organisations such as BTEG and LEAP –both shown on the programme- who are helping young Black men compete in the jobs market  against the odds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01skbpd/Panorama_Jobs_for_the_Boys/

Simon Woolley