Anti-racism chair says all players should take a knee

All players should take a knee in protest against the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck, anti-discrimination body Kick It Out chair Sanjay Bhandari said Monday.

Floyd’s death on May 25 has sparked unrest across the United States and the imposition of curfews in dozens of cities, with sports professionals also lending their voices in support of the #Blacklivesmatter movement.

Jadon Sancho and Marcus Thuram led protests in the Bundesliga, with the latter taking a knee in a soccer goal celebration over the weekend — akin to quarterback Colin Kaepernick who knelt at NFL games to protest against racial injustice.

“If you score a goal and take a knee, could everyone do that? Not just the black players, the white players, too — everyone. Every player should do it,” Bhandari told the Guardian.

“It should be teams doing it . ... 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.”

Premier League leaders Liverpool’s squad was pictured kneeling during training on Monday, with a caption “Unity is strength. #Blacklivesmatter.”

Bhandari said he hoped players would not be cautioned or punished for expressing their support in a manner they saw fit.

Serie A teams will face twogames a week for the rest of the season once the league restarts following the novel coronavirus stoppage, according to the fixture list published on Monday.

The league confirmed it will restart on June 20 and finish on Aug. 2 and there will be matches almost every day during that period as it completes the remaining 12 rounds of matches, plus four games outstanding, in just over six weeks.

Serie A has been suspended since March 9 because of the pandemic but the government gave the green light for it to restart last Thursday.

Most weekend matchdays will run from Saturday to Monday and mid-week rounds from Tuesday to Thursday.

The league will resume with the four matches postponed from previous rounds. Torino-parma get the ball rolling on June 20, followed by Verona-cagliari.