LONDON (AFP) - English Premier League football players said Wednesday they will no longer take the knee before every match in the upcoming season, confining the anti-racism gesture to selected games.
“We have decided to select significant moments to take the knee during the season to highlight our unity against all forms of racism, and in so doing we continue to show solidarity for a common cause,” club captains said in a Premier League statement.
The league said it supported the captains’ decision, and would elevate anti-racism messaging as part of its “No Room for Racism” campaign -- words that already feature on players’ sleeves.
Premier League players began taking the knee at the start of every game in June 2020, when the season resumed following a COVID shutdown, a month after the killing in the United States of George Floyd.
Ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started kneeling to protest against racial injustice in 2016, and the gesture has become a familiar sight across a range of sports since Floyd’s murder by a U.S. police officer.
But several Premier League players have said the gesture was losing its impact -- and some right-wing politicians in Britain have criticized its identification with the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
Wilfried Zaha, a black striker for Crystal Palace, was an early dissident, labelling the gesture “degrading” and opting to stand instead.
Last season, Chelsea’s white defender Marcos Alonso decided to stand and point instead to the anti-racism badge on his shirt sleeve.