As Rugby refuses to take the knee, is it time the Premier League stopped too?

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I see the taking the knee has done its job...it's got people discussing racism and what can be done to stop it...

That's what's it there for, a bloody gesture to highlight the fact that it still exists and more needs to be done to eradicate it. Long may it continue.

Good job they didn't disrespect our national anthem for their cause though.
 
Don’t know why we sometimes have a minute silence before games either, it’s not like it solves death..
 
I disagree. Completely, actually.

Is it easier for racist abuse to be in the public forum due to social media? Yes.
You could be right and it's just more obvious now due to social media so I'll definitely concede that.

It won't change my mind more needs done though
 
Surely this cringe show should now end and the silliness of millionaire footballers taking the knee before an empty stadium every week should stop.

I much prefer we aim to make all lives better no matter.

I honestly believe this Premier League Wokeness needs to stop, and I fully support the Rugby Teams in taking a stand on this.

:wenger: I have read some crazy posts on this forum and the above sentences are up there with the worst of them.
 
It’s like the people who burn their own products from a specific brand because the brand took a stand for something. All that accomplishes is huge free exposure.

Yeah that too, but more to the point, taking a knee is designed to raise awareness and show solidarity. The OP wouldn't be in here facilitating a conversation about racial issues in the UK and what can be done to tackle it if they had stopped taking a knee after one week. So he/she is a great example of the thing he/she is complaining about actually working as intended.
 
Just out of interest, what would you consider suitable action?

Get match stewards to boot out racists for a start. They do feck all at the moment. Punish clubs who don't instruct their stewards to do this.

Asking for 1 BAME board member per club by 2026 will do nothing.

I'd prefer clear, immediate action over vague, long term plans.
 
Yeah that too, but more to the point, taking a knee is designed to raise awareness and show solidarity. The OP wouldn't be in here facilitating a conversation about racial issues in the UK and what can be done to tackle it if they had stopped taking a knee after one week. So he/she is a great example of thing he/she is complaining about actually working as intended.

Their mind will be blown once the realisation sets in.
 
Get match stewards to boot out racists for a start. They do feck all at the moment. Punish clubs who don't instruct their stewards to do this.

Asking for 1 BAME board member per club by 2026 will do nothing.

I'd prefer clear, immediate action over vague, long term plans.

Would you have a go at the bloke next to you if he was being racist?
 
Its because BLM is connected with far left liberalism (i currently live in NYC, so i see a lot of it) Of course the words "Black Lives Matter" are true, but it's the movement people have problems with. "No to Racism" should be adopted and chosen as the leading movement in the UK. And no, the players should never stop kneeling and showing their support.
 
Depends, What is Racism?

Hypothetically,

If I hated someone because of their skin colour and told them directly how I felt about them using derogatory words, then that I would consider would be racism.

If I wanted to unsettle a player at a rival club, one tool I could use is derogatory terms to unsettle them. Would that be racism if I cheered on my own players of colour and I didn't really care about skin colour at all?


If you use racist terms in any situation you are a racist end of story.

Why would you think it's fine if they play for a club you don't like?
 
It might make sense in the future to not lose meaning behind the message to have all games in Black History Month a time when players kneel.
 
They made the initial mistake of aligning themselves the BLM political movement and now they're not able to shake off that association.

I think the it makes sense to continue the knee under their own anti-racism campaign without associating themselves with BLM and their ridiculous policies.
 
I actually can't get my head around the fact people seem to have an issue with taking the knee. It's a constant reminder that the issues they are protesting against haven't disappeared overnight. Also funny that we should follow the example of predominantly white, middle-class sport like rugby above all else.

It's generally the sort of people who say "all lives matter" or "keep politics out of football" and litter Sky and F1 type adverts on facebook with comments like "won't sign up until you stop being political".

I think it's basically racists who need a more acceptable way of hiding their racism.
 
You could be right and it's just more obvious now due to social media so I'll definitely concede that.

It won't change my mind more needs done though
Yeah, we completely agree on that.
 
Taking a knee is just one step, but pretty small step footballers can do. Why aren't footballers doing more than just taking a knee, surely deleting or at least threatening to delete their twitter, instagram, and all other social media accounts until those internet giants take further actions against racism on their platforms will do far more than taking a knee before a game?

Taking a knee while supporting racist platforms from which they earn big money from is pretty silly, IMO.
 
Would you have a go at the bloke next to you if he was being racist?

Honestly? Depends how big he was and who I was with. If i'm with my 12 year old nephew and there's 3 massive skinheads then almost certainly I'd not say much more than "come on dude, there's a kid here". I've told a few people to shut the feck up over the years for various awful stuff (not just racism), depending on how many beers I've had.

I barely get to 5 games a season in recent years at Chelsea, Bournemouth (free tickets from work) and Wimbledon (my brother-in laws team) though, I'm an armchair fan nowadays but generally you hear the odd awful thing said at most games.

I don't get paid to steward the crowd and anyway, fans getting involved in vigilante stuff is a bad idea.
 
You could be right and it's just more obvious now due to social media so I'll definitely concede that.

It won't change my mind more needs done though
Don't forget that the last 4-5 years has been the rise of the troll era, where many people have become emboldened to speak their minds under the guise of anonymity. I dont think kneeling has much to do with it, a group of BLM protesters could be marching peacefully through the city and they'd still get abused.
 
Honestly? Depends how big he was and who I was with. If i'm with my 12 year old nephew and there's 3 massive skinheads then almost certainly not. I've told a few people to shut the feck up over the years for various awful stuff (not just racism), depending on how many beers I've had.

I barely get to 5 games a season in recent years at Chelsea, Bournemouth (free tickets from work) and Wimbledon (my brother-in laws team) though, I'm an armchair fan nowadays but generally you hear the odd awful thing said at most games.

I don't get paid to steward the crowd and anyway, fans getting involved in vigilante stuff is a bad idea.

No it's a tough one. But stewards are generally not exactly thrilled about confronting such people either.
 
Rugby players have no issue kneeling when they’re guzzling piss out of each others arse cracks in the name of ‘banter’.

This thread is dreadful, as I’m sure as has been pointed out. There is room for nuanced debate surrounding what next steps to take when combating racism, but this thread isn’t it. It’s designed to trigger reactions and wind people up.
 
You're making one big mistake. Clapping for the NHS is being propagated by the Tory government who are actually in a position to solve the NHS crisis.
I thought it was the general public who started it? Politicians jumped on the bandwagon as usual, which as you say is objectionable and hypocritical since they’re the ones squeezing it in the first place, but I didn’t think it was their idea.
 
I thought it was the general public who started it? Politicians jumped on the bandwagon as usual, which as you say is objectionable and hypocritical since they’re the ones squeezing it in the first place, but I didn’t think it was their idea.


It was originally an Italian idea.
 
I did a little experiment with one of the matches towards the back end of last year when Sky were doing their interstitial screen and found that between the kneeling, timer adverts, hoarding adverts, interstitial adverts, tarp adverts etc. that there was a reference to BLM or adjacent messaging every 12 seconds on average. That, to me, goes beyond merely making a point about a cause, to the extent of being invasive.

Are you sure that it doesn't also violate your human rights?
 
Aaha.
Problem solved.

I think murders, assaults and all crimes in the society can be solved like this. All you need to say is "That wasn't my intent".
Hahaha is that racism with first, second and third degree incoming then? Amazing world.
 
Get match stewards to boot out racists for a start. They do feck all at the moment. Punish clubs who don't instruct their stewards to do this.

Asking for 1 BAME board member per club by 2026 will do nothing.

I'd prefer clear, immediate action over vague, long term plans.

Diversifying boardrooms and the people involved in the decision making process across the league will help tackle these issues more effectively.

I hear you though, I'd like direct immediate action too, but throwing out and banning racists from stadiums is just tackling one form of racism [granted it's the most visible and visceral form of it], their plan aims to tackle structural and more subtle forms of it.
 
The growth will be fairly organic, more black players will want to be coaches when they see more black coaches. I can't imagine many of them wanted to join the old boys club. More black players now will mean more black coaches which will mean more black coaches.
I agree that having more people 'like you' in higher positions helps make that idea acceptable (to yourself and others), and helps that situation (i.e., more diversity) to continue to exist and develop. In practice though, the organic part doesn't happen. For example, if this growth were organic, you would see a lot more diversity at the top of big business and politics; but in practice, it's a largely still white men running the show. That's where quota come in. Force chance in the here and now, and once that has happened, let the organic development have its way.

I mean, this is the not first generation of footballers with the current level of diversity, but in 2019, only 6 out of 92 coaches of clubs in the English professional leagues were non-white (source: BBC article). It makes no sense to assume that so few non-white players would have had the tactical nous or interest to become a coach; so there must be something structural at play. I don't know what exactly, and there might be obstacles that can be removed; but putting quota in place to help normalize the idea of having non-white coaches at the highest level. (It's likely similar to the dynamic that makes hiring managers think twice about hiring someone with an Arabic name while they CV is the same as the John Smith next in the pile.)

Is taking the knee a little too politically loaded? Many people agree with the movement but disagree with certain elements of BLM. We can share recognition of a problem without necessarily agreeing to the same solutions (i.e. defunding the police, all the lingo like white privilege etc.). It becomes too dogmatic that way - i.e. letter of the law rather than spirit of the law. Is there not something else that can be done with less of a divisive approach?

Those who identify strongly with a left persuasion might be inclined to jump straight into the rationale of "if you have any problems with taking a knee, BLM etc. you're automatically deeply, unconsciously racist". This is fundamentally wrong. It might be true for some people but it isn't a rule.

Anyway, if the intention is to change hearts and minds, surely the gestures shouldn't be so ritualisitic and politically contentious? Otherwise it doesn't truly do much, and can even entrench people further into their ideological echo chamber.

One of the beautiful things about modern football is that most teams are ethnically diverse and we can see the bond and friendship between a squad of around 25 men from all different nationalities and backgrounds. THIS to me is more powerful than weekly gestures that either get diluted into a ritual or ones that have so many other connotations that exclude people from the main message. Surely the left actually WANT those on the right to be in accord? Why make it fecking difficult with all the extra rhetoric? Look into taking a knee; it's loaded as anything.
EPL removed the connection with BLM for that reason in September actually (too much distraction due to political statements) and replaced it with their own slogan, 'No Room For Racism'. (Source: The Guardian article.) So the problem shouldn't exist anymore.
 
Imagine being bothered by anti-racism messages so much that you spend an entire football match looking at advertising boards to see how often they have an anti-racism message on them.

Have more of a problem with that than say, the Adidas adverts in the very same boards.
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"These clocks show the all the times Sky Sports told me to not be racist! I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
 
I think they should look to mix it up. Taking a knee has lost some of its impact through routine. Exploring different ways to keep the message fresh, take on input from the players, allow them to direct it in some ways could keep the enthusiasm there.
 
I don’t see any harm in “taking the knee” but how long is it going to go on for? There must be other worthy causes that the PL could support in a similar way other than BLM - free Palestine, Disability awareness, or whatever. Why focus on just one worthy cause for so long?
 
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