Former NBA player Chris Bosh is boycotting the NFL after the league fired two Black coaches.
Bosh tweeted “I am finished with the NFL until they start hiring more Black coaches –and keeping them around.”
Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores was fired after heading the NFL team for the last three years, NBC 6 reported.
This week Flores sued the league and three NFL teams; the Dolphins, the Denver Broncos, and the New York Giants and alleged the league engages in racist hiring practices which create a racially segregated atmosphere, ESPN reported.
The NFL said in a statement that these claims are “without merit” and it will defend against the allegations.
It read, “The NFL and our clubs are deeply committed to ensuring equitable employment practices and continue to make progress in providing equitable opportunities throughout our organizations. Diversity is core to everything we do, and there are few issues on which our clubs and our internal leadership team spend more time.”
The former Miami Heat star criticized the NFL for its lack of diversity within the league’s coaching staff in an essay published in “The Last Chip.”
“If we’re talking about equal opportunity or diversity or any other word you’d use, it doesn’t exist in the NFL unless you’re an athlete risking your life on the field,” he said.
“…there are fewer Black head coaches now than there were when the season began-down to an appalling count of one. Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched the discrimination behind that disparity play out in real time…it sure seems like the white guys are having an easier time becoming head coaches and general managers nowadays, while Black coaches are held to an entirely different standard.”
Bosh hopes one day he will witness more diversity within the league’s coaching staff.
“I want to be able to watch the Super Bowl next to my kids, knowing they’ll see people who look like them on the field and the sidelines. I want them to know that the next great strategic mind might belong to a coach who isn’t necessarily white. Because I know they’re out there, future Belichicks and Lombardis and Maddens who happen to not be white men,” he said.