It may be too much too hope, but it looks as though when Premier League football starts again on Friday the players may finally abandon the knee-taking that, until now, has been a mandatory ritual before every game. According to MailOnline, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the 20 club captains last Thursday, with some expressing concern that the gesture has lost its ‘gravitas’. Okay, I know that sounds comical – taking the knee has about as much gravitas as a helium balloon – but frankly I don’t care what excuse footballers come up with so long as they ditch it. MailOnline has more.
Although there remain clubs who are still to discuss the ritual with their squads – Newcastle United will consult their team on Tuesday, for example – sources say there is tangible support for only taking the knee before ‘selected’ matches in order to help bring back the meaning.
While the desire for equality remains as strong as ever among top-flight footballers – as does the idea of making impactful statements – it is feared that the taking of the knee at kick-offs has lost its influence.
I hadn’t intended to Fisk this piece, but the desire for equality remains as strong as every among top-flight footballers. Really?!? If they’re so committed to equality, why do they drive supercars, spray Cristal champagne around nightclubs and post pictures of themselves in private jets on Instagram? Let’s move on.
A watered-down version of the gesture is currently the likeliest outcome of talks, although how Premier League clubs would decide which weeks they perform the anti-racism symbol remains to be seen.
It could be reserved for televised matches, thereby ensuring the gesture is seen weekly by millions worldwide, or decided on a game-by-game basis between club representatives in the days leading up to a fixture.
Likewise players are likely to take the knee to mark any No Room For Racism campaigns to ensure they are seen showing support for the Premier League’s pro-equality action plan.
Finalised plans are due to be announced ahead of Friday‘s opener between Arsenal and Leicester – once every club has had the chance to consult their squads and report back to the rest of the group. The Premier League say they will back whatever decision is reached by the players.
At least one top-flight club is not set to take the knee, with players of newly-promoted Bournemouth having concluded the gesture has ‘run its course’.
The Cherries announced in February 2021 – midway through their Championship campaign – that they would stop performing the act. Bournemouth are set to stand by their current stance, still of the opinion that the symbol is not having the impact that was originally intended.
Premier League stars, including Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha and Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso, have also expressed concerns that taking the knee has lost its meaning.
Lost its meaning? You can say that again – although I’m not sure it ever had very much in the first place. If footballers really care about ‘equality’, even if it’s only racial equality, why were there only seven black managers in the 92 professional football clubs in England in 2021? And how come they haven’t made a fuss about the World Cup being played in Qatar, given that it has an estimated 30,300 slaves – 1.36% of the population – according to the Global Slavery Index in 2016? Whatever.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Sky News has confirmed today that Premier League footballers will indeed stop taking the knee, apart from on special occasions.
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“why were there only 7 black managers”
7 out of 92 is 7.6%. What proportion of people in the UK old enough to be managers are black?
Why aren’t you bothered that 0 were South Asians, when they significantly outnumber blacks?
There aren’t enough Smiths either, not that I have any interest in the ugly game.
A good point!
There are something like 33 million men in the UK and only 92 of them are managers of professional football clubs (the four top English divisions.) 20 come from outside the UK, of whom four are black. And three of that tiny group of 72 are British-born black men, which represents slightly above the percentage of black people – both sexes – living in the UK, so more than twice as many as you might expect if you were forcibly egalitarian about things. One can’t use a tiny, exceptional group of men to create a trend for an entire country.
That’s also before getting into the geographical issue: ethnic minorities, particularly black people, tend to be clustered in a small number of cities. If you don’t live in certain cities, it’s possible to wander around many areas of the UK all day long and never see someone who isn’t white. If you do see someone non-white, they’re more than twice as likely to be Asian as black. On the average day in much of the UK, it’s likely you see far more black people on advertising hoardings and on TV commercials than in your daily life.
Football team managers hail from all over the UK (ignoring the foreign managers) and with black people in large groupings being limited to a few areas, it’s amazing that there are as many managers who are black as there are.
I guess the point is that black men are probably over-represented in terms of the players, so there should be an equal over-representation among the managers, and the fact that there isn’t is evidence of systemic racism, and definitely isn’t because black people are more likely that whites to be good at elite football but less good at management, because anti-racist dogma is that it’s OK to point out under-representation of non-white people, but never OK to point out over-representation of non-white people, OK to point out over-representation of white people but never OK to point out under-representation of white people.
Taking the knee is part of the anti-racism industry/mass hysteria. Hating people solely because of their race/skin colour, regardless of how they behave, seems to me stupid and morally wrong. Accepting that there might be natural differences in outcome based on naturally varying characteristics among races, and just ignoring that fact and treating people as individuals, seems reasonable. But that’s not where we seem to be. This will not end well.
Are you raising a ‘hate incident?’
Send for plod.
The Women’s Euro’s showed what a farce taking the knee has become (if it was ever anything but). It happened at some matches but not others, and at the England vs N Ireland game the English players took the knee but the Irish players didn’t (does this mean the Irish players are a bunch of racist bastards, or just able to think for themselves?).
I only watched the final, plastic fan that I am, but I did clock that ridiculous rainbow captain’s armband. FFS, I can’t move for rainbows! “Paint the whole world with a rainbooow”. Aargh..
I’m confused, too. Do rainbows represent the gender industry or the NHS? Someone needs a new symbol although if I see a rainbow that isn’t in the sky after rain, I have a strong urge to fling a sod at it.
And why do the list of letters keep getting longer? What does the IA+ stand for? They need to add an ‘M’ for ‘mentally ill’ and ‘C’ for ‘confused’ I think. It’s getting ridiculous now. Perhaps the ‘A’ stands for ‘attention-seeker’.
Of course I’m not homophobic but I think its no longer necessary to take to the streets waving a symbol that looks like a pre-schooler designed it whilst shoving your sexual orientation in my face. I don’t have the inclination to shout about my straightness to all and sundry whilst dressed like a bargain basement stripper.
In all the places I’ve worked people have been treat equally, whether they’re gay, non-white, disabled, female, older, foreign etc etc Its just all woketard, political and exhibitionism now I think. Pride used to be fun but now it’s been spoilt.
Firkin
absolutely piss me off.
I think anyone who kneels in front of anyone else is a virtue-signalling nobhead.
It’s not like you to be so brief Mogs.
I’m here more for Covid-related stuff but even that I’m giving a wider berth as it is summer and I don’t want to be all consumed by the “what are the governments gonna pull out of their arses come autumn time?” mentality and if I can’t add any new or different offerings on the subject then regurgitating what I’ve been saying the last 12-18 months holds no appeal. I get bored reading the same old stuff rehashed over and over. I’m interested more in any new developments so that I can keep in the loop, not going over old ground which has been done to death.
The whole thing is tedious and woke. Fans hate it. Viewers turn it off. I wish a team would have the guts to kick off and run for the goal while the other team is still kneeling. The knee-bending is a transplant of American racial politics to the UK where racial dynamics are (were) completely different. Three per cent of the UK population is black. The British Empire was the first empire in human history to abolish slavery and then went to great lengths to stamp it out elsewhere. It’s time the knee-bending ends forever. It has no basis in British culture.
I’m fact black players are over represented in English football. There are too many of them compared to their proportion of black people within the English population..
So perhaps they should continue to take the knee but to fight against racism against white football players in the English game.
Actually the ones that are really discriminated against are South Asians. They are very poorly represented in English football.
So one knee before the first half for the whities and one before the second half for the South Asians.
Football is the perfect meritocracy. If you’re good enough, no-one cares what colour you are. I’d be perfectly happy with 11 black players in the England team, if they were the best 11 English players available. Trying to put percentage representations on it shows how stupid the whole intersectionality thing is.
I quite agree. Thing is, you will then be asked to explain why the black players don’t become managers at the same rate, and that’s when the trouble starts.
Of course the whole business is utter madness – condemn binary categorisation but then categorise people into races when it suits your point – the wokesters decide when it’s OK to put people in distinct boxes and when it isn’t. Race doesn’t exist, except when we say it does.
Well said. And why aren’t there many black football managers? I’m not a footie fan and even I’ve noticed that.
It depends who you ask. Some would say it’s because of systemic racism, others would say that taking arbitrary groupings and expecting them to be equally represented in every sphere of life even with a completely even playing field is unrealistic. I would take the second view, which seems to me pretty much self-evidently true, but this opinion is now almost taboo and would get me sacked from many jobs.
Why do you think it is? If you don’t feel qualified to answer as you’re not a football fan, I’m sure you can find many other examples of specific racial groupings (which as you must bear in mind don’t exist but exist at the same time) are not evenly represented in specific professions or sports or whatever.
This is where the trouble starts. Someone points out there are not as many black managers as one might expect, and you say “so what?” and they say “it’s racism”. What’s your answer? If you say it’s not racism, they say well what is your explanation? So what happens is that people just go along with the idea it’s racism, whether they believe or not.
Yes and we could move the same sort of arguments to other professions quite easily. Why are most chefs male? Why are most secretaries or primary school teachers female? There’s disproportionate representation in many professions but that’s usually just sociology at work, nobody’s being discriminated against or over-looked in the job application process. If more females apply for secretarial positions than men then they are the ones that are most highly represented. Its really that simple in my non-expert opinion. Its when people read too much into something and start playing the racial/sexual discrimination card that it opens a can of worms totally unnecessarily. To my mind, if its not broken why fix it?
I feel the same way about any work place. It should be based on who’s the best candidates for the roles, not meeting some quota of staff based on gender or ethnicity.
Or just go down on both knees at the start of the match. Or go down on both knees at the start of the match and then just go the whole hog and play the game on their knees….be a good laugh if nothing else.
Better not give them ideas though.
The need to “virtue signal” seems to signify the possession of obscene wealth in conjunction with a limited critical thinking capacity.
In Australia, a Rugby League team recently sprang on its players a “pride” jersey for a single round.
Funnily enough, 7 players, all from Pacific Island heritage, where Christianity runs strongly through the culture, refused to wear the jersey on religious grounds.
It was fun to see the woke left tie themselves in knots trying to simultaneously demonise the “transphobe” players whilst also trying to avoid appearing racist.
Perhaps they could start ‘taking the arm’ as a mark of respect for people who have died from or been injured by the Covid injections.
Brilliant.
Now we’re talking.
Do they also kneel before rugby matches? I’m just trying to envisage the parody spectacle of the NZ All Blacks kneeling then breaking into their Haka, how massively weird and stupid that would look. Please tell me that isn’t already an established thing!
I think that generally the ‘knee’ annoys and aggravates more people than it pleases..that’s if anyone even notices at all….
I watched a good interview with JP Sears and Tucker…JP had just done a video called virtue signalling for the Ukraine..(hi, I’m the guy who supports the current thing)
and what he said was that virtue signalling can be easily adopted and as easily throw off because it isn’t based on any fundamental or deeply held convictions…and I think he’s right.
I’ve noticed on Twitter that Ukraine flags are being dropped from bio’s or additions are being made with the Taiwan, and even the Kosovo flags! Easy come, easy go….LOL….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toGMjVVhkiM
Should we not also be showing regret for our role in the slave trade?
I know the WEFfers are intent on bringing it back but before our history is erased forever we could at least make a gesture.
They could perhaps hastily dig themselves into holes to commemorate the 24th of October 1916.
A presumably little know fact about the grande nation is that it periodically refilled the depleted ranks of its WWI infantry regiments by catching^Wpersuading black people from Africa to join the ranks who were then literally whipped into action. But that was ok since history has decided they were the good guys back then.
Yes, I can see why these millionaire football players take the knee. Because it is a meaningless gesture and they have no,idea just how meaningless it is. Wouldn’t we all LOVE to see just one of them giving something back to their community. Until they do, taking the knee is meaningless and laughable and serves NO purpose guys.