Kick It Out tell Premier League players to join in protests over George Floyd’s death

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The chairman of Kick It Out has urged Premier League players to take a knee in protest against the death of George Floyd.

Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis a week ago has sparked days of protests across the United States.

Four players in Germany’s Bundesliga, including England’s Jadon Sancho, made their own feelings known on the issue during matches over the weekend.

The DFB are currently investigating the gestures, which included Borussia Monchengladbach forward Marcus Thuram taking a knee after scoring imitating the famous actions of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Sanjay Bhandari doesn’t believe authorities should take any action against the players in question and has called on their Premier League counterparts to follow suit when football on these shores resumes later this month.

“Every player should do it. It should be teams doing it,” he told the Guardian. “You saw the Erling Haaland celebration after the first game back where all the Borussia Dortmund players did the social distancing celebration. They could all take a knee.

“Racism’s not about black players or brown fans. It’s about all of us. Racism corrodes society and we’re all hurt by it. Everyone should want to demonstrate their solidarity and disgust.

“I would like to encourage the players to protest if they want to. But I would also like to encourage them to do it in a way that doesn’t expose them to unnecessary sanction. If they could do that by taking a knee, well if every player did that it would be quite a powerful message.

“I would be interested to hear what the authorities thought of that, whether it would constitute a breach of the rules. To me that is about demonstrating solidarity.”