Colin Kazim-Richards seeks Crawley revival as he calls out barriers for Black coaches

Crawley Town manager Colin Kazim-Richards said in an interview published on 1 October 2026 that his team were bottom of League Two after seven games, as he and assistant Julian Gray tried to turn around the Sussex club. He said the results had yet to reflect a rebuild involving 16 new players. His account also placed their work in a wider discussion about the opportunities available to Black coaches in English football.

Kazim-Richards and Gray arrived in April and helped Crawley avoid relegation to the National League on the final day, according to the Guardian. Their task this season is different: to make a heavily changed squad work together while collecting the results needed to move away from the bottom of the table. The league position cited in the interview is a snapshot from 1 October, not a prediction of where Crawley will finish.

Why Crawley’s rebuild is taking time

Kazim-Richards told the Guardian that Crawley had brought in 16 players, with eight or nine making debuts. He described a job that extends beyond team selection: bringing new personalities together, changing the mentality left by the previous season and putting new structures and standards in place at the club. Those changes, he said, have to be made while the staff are under pressure to win matches.

“The results are not showing the work we’ve done; it’s more a case of when the process is going to start showing,” he said. Kazim-Richards argued that the transition would take longer than a few weeks, but acknowledged that the work would ultimately be judged by results. His explanation describes what the coaching staff are trying to do; the early league position shows the improvement he expects has yet to appear in the table.

Julian Gray’s role alongside Kazim-Richards

Gray brings experience from coaching youth groups at Arsenal’s Hale End academy and at Birmingham. He told the Guardian that improving players begins with understanding what each person needs and finding the best way to give them information. His approach puts individual development alongside the work of assembling Crawley’s new group into a team.

The two coaches have an older connection through Arsenal, where both spent time as players at different stages. Gray was in the first-team squad between 1996 and 2000 and made one appearance; Kazim-Richards did not reach the first team. Kazim-Richards said he had looked up to Gray’s style and determination. When he discussed taking the Crawley job with owner Raphael Khalili, he said, he insisted that Gray join him as assistant.

Crawley’s recent history adds context to the appointment. The Guardian reported that former manager John Yems received a three-year ban after being found guilty of 12 breaches of anti-discrimination rules. Ownership changed the previous year to KB Sports and Leisure, headed by Khalili. Kazim-Richards was coaching at Arsenal’s academy before Khalili hired him for his first managerial role.

What Kazim-Richards says about Black coaches

Asked whether a glass ceiling still exists for Black coaches, Kazim-Richards answered: “Of course.” He told the Guardian that many Black coaches were good enough to deserve an opportunity. The paper reported that, when he was hired, he became only the third Black head coach across the top four tiers of English football, alongside Nuno Espírito Santo and Lee Grant. That count describes the point of his appointment; it should not be read as a continuously updated tally.

Kazim-Richards also cautioned against treating the outcome of one Black manager’s job as a verdict on Black coaches generally. Discussing Jermain Defoe’s short spell at Woking, he said white managers fail too, while young Black coaches were doing well in academies and non-league football. His argument was about how individual careers are discussed as well as who gets the chance to build one.

Historical figures help explain the wider concern, although they cannot account for any one appointment. BBC Sport reported in 2024 on Black Footballers Partnership-commissioned research examining the off-field careers of about 3,500 former Premier League or Championship players from 1990 to 2010. It said non-Black players were 50% more likely to enter management over that period. The same report said Black people held 4% of managerial roles in 2022 and 2023 despite accounting for 25% of UEFA-issued coaching qualifications.

Crawley’s immediate aim and longer ambition

For Kazim-Richards, the immediate test remains Crawley’s results. He said the short-term priority was to get wins and move the team up the table. The club’s owners have an ambition to reach the Championship, according to the Guardian, but he described that as a longer journey requiring time. Neither the league position after seven games nor the survival result from April establishes how far this squad will go.