England’s players will keep taking the knee before kick-off throughout this summer’s Euro 2020 campaign despite some supporters booing the gesture earlier this week.
Gareth Southgate revealed that he has held a meeting with his players to discuss whether to persist with the anti-racism gesture despite an adverse reaction from a minority of fans at the Riverside Stadium during Wednesday’s friendly win over Austria.
The booing at the Riverside was eventually drowned out by applause, but with England playing all three of their group stage games at home, the incident has sparked concerns of more booing at the tournament itself.
Southgate said that after discussions with senior players and the whole squad, England will continue to take the knee regardless of the reaction in the stands and that players would not be taking further questions on the gesture this summer.
“The most important thing for our players is to know that we are totally united on it, we’re totally committed to supporting each other, supporting the team. We feel that more than ever determined to take the knee through this tournament,” Southgate said.
“We accept there might be an adverse reaction. We’re just going to ignore that and move forward. I think the players are sick of talking about the consequences of should they, shouldn’t they. They’ve had enough really.
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re not going to take more questions on this through the tournament. If it happens, it happens. They’re really clear, their voices have been heard loud and clear. They’re making their stand but they want to talk about the football and the focus to be on football.
“We had a productive meeting with a group of the players yesterday, we enlarged that to the wider group today. But there are other things we need to spend our time on and the players want to spend their time on.
“That’s not them dismissing the importance of this, they know the power of their voices, they know the fact that they can make a difference, but they do at this moment want talk to be about their football and to be able to concetrate on their football and use the impact of their voice at a more appropriate time when they feel they can make a difference.
“Today we can because of what happened. I think the fact we’re going to keep going is impactful.”
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