Three Premier League stars refused to take the knee on Saturday afternoon as the ‘No Room For Racism’ month of action got underway.
Everton star Ainsley Maitland-Niles refused to kneel as his side hosted Chelsea in the early kick-off – despite everyone else doing so.
And Marc Guehi and Issa Diop did the same just before Manchester City and Ipswich kicked off at the Etihad Stadium.
The players’ reasons for not kneeling are not yet known. However, a number of footballers have expressed concern that the gesture has lost its value.
In 2021, former Crystal Palace star Wilfried Zaha described kneeling as ‘degrading’ while Ivan Toney said: ‘We are being used as puppets.’
Everton’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles refused to take the knee before the game against Chelsea
The Premier League’s ‘No Room For Racism’ initiative kicked off on Saturday
Maitland-Niles took the knee in 2021 but has since opted against making the gesture
‘I feel like taking the knee is degrading, because growing up my parents just let me know that I should be proud to be Black no matter what and I feel like we should just stand tall,’ Zaha said.
It is not the first time players have refused to take the knee. Last year Dominic Calvert-Lewin did so in Burnley‘s fixture with Leeds, while Crysencio Summerville has been known to take the same action.
Ahead of the 2021-22 season, Luton indicated that they would not be taking the knee and instead all stood in the centre circle.
Players and staff have the opportunity to perform the pre-match gesture for the next two gameweeks in October, with the Premier League reiterating ‘the commitment to tackling discrimination and highlight the importance of diversity in football’.
The move started in the UK in 2020 following the death in US police custody of George Floyd, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
In August 2022, the Premier League stopped taking the knee before every match after consulting with players. Instead, a decision was made to limit the gesture to match rounds falling during the No Room For Racism initiative.
Last year, the Lionesses chose not to kneel before their Euro 2025 semi-final against Italy following racist abuse aimed at defender Jess Carter on social media.
Captain Lucy Bronze said the anti-racism message is not ‘as strong as it used to be’ following the abuse of her team-mate.
‘It was driven by the group – obviously certain individuals more than others,’ Bronze explained. ‘I think it was just the fact that we feel as a collective, is the message as strong as it used to be? Is the message really hitting hard? Because to us it feels like it’s not if these things are still happening to our players in the biggest tournaments of their lives.
‘It’s about putting another statement out there to say, it’s something that still is a problem, it’s something that still needs to be put right. More needs to be done in football, more needs to be done in society. What that is right now as an individual, I don’t exactly know.’
