Brexiteer wants to thank two England players for not taking the knee. They were actually Romanian

A former Brexit Party MEP went on live radio to congratulate two “England” players who didn’t kneel before their match, only for them to turn out to be players from the other team.

During England’s pre-Euro 2020 warm-up match against Romania, England played in their blue away kit.

Despite boos from some in the crowd, each player took the knee before kick-off in solidarity against racism.

Martin Daubney appeared to make the error after assuming the team playing in white were England, when in fact, it was the opposition team Romania. Two of their players, Ionut Nedelcearu and Nicolae Stanciu, stood during the brief moment.

In a now-deleted tweet, Daubney wrongly wrote: “Two England players didn’t take the knee. Do any of you know which ones - I’d like to say ‘well done’ to them.”

The tweet was reposted by another Twitter user who’d spotted his cringe-worthy error.

But, things got even more embarrassing for the former Brexit Party MEP as, before he’d realised his mistake, he repeated it live on TalkRadio.

Daubney told host Mike Graham on air: “Well interestingly, if you look last night at the Riverside Stadium, there were… two England players who didn’t take the knee.

“I wonder if any of your listeners know who those players are? I’d like to say ‘well done’ to those lads, you know, they are leading by example.”

In a tweet, the Brexiteer said that his appearance on TalkRadio was to discuss how “it’s time to end the divisive virtue signalling of taking the knee at football”.

Daubney was left red-faced by the incident and people on Twitter made sure he wouldn’t forget about it in a hurry by reposting the video on the social media site.

One person joked: “Noted football expert goes on live radio to praise two England players for not taking the knee, ignoring the fact it was in fact two Romania players.”

Another jibed sarcastically: “To be fair it is very hard to identify them whilst they’re wearing specifically coloured clothes with their names on.”

Stanciu has since claimed that he didn’t take the knee as a mark of solidarity for his Slavia Prague teammate, Ondrej Kudela who was hit with a 10-match ban earlier this season after being found guilty of Rangers’ Glen Kamara during a Europa League game. As reported by The Daily Record, Stanciu said: “I did it to show solidarity with Kudela, my colleague at Slavia. He was suspended for 10 games based on no evidence. I don’t believe kneeling is the solution.”