US allows players to take a knee
KICK IT OUT Soccer federation scraps controversial rule for players to stand ‘respectfully’ during national anthem
United States Soccer Federation (USSF), the sport’s apex body in that country, made a landmark policy change on Wednesday. Acknowledging that its rule banning players from kneeling during the national anthem was wrong, it scrapped the controversial policy.
“It has become clear that this policy was wrong and detracted from the important message of Black Lives Matter,” the USSF said Wednesday.
“We have not done enough to listen —especially to our players —to understand and acknowledge the very real and meaningful experiences of Black and other minority communities in our country.
“We apologise to our players—especially our Black players—staff, fans, and all who support eradicating racism,” USSF said.
The USSF rule mandating that players must “stand respectfully” during the national anthem was introduced in 2017. It came after US women’s team star Megan Rapinoe knelt during the anthem at a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) game against Chicago Red Stars while representing Seattle
Reign. Rapinoe’s act was a gesture of solidarity with former gridiron National Football League (NFL) star Colin Kaepernick, but NWSL clubs and US Soccer both clamped down on the protest.
In Reign’s next game, Washington Spirit played the national anthem when players were in the locker room, preventing Rapinoe from continuing with her protest.
Since US Soccer introduced the rule that barred kneeling during the national anthem, Rapinoe had publicly opposed it. “Using this blanketed patriotism as a defence against what the protest actually is was pretty cowardly,” Rapinoe said in an interview with Yahoo Sports ahead of last year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.
With anti-racism protests gathering steam in the US following the killing of George Floyd, the US national team that won the World Cup in France—with Rapinoe playing a starring role —also released a statement on Monday asking the federation to repeal the rule.
IOC TO CONSIDER
US Soccer’s move has come on the heels of FIFA and NFL allowing player protests and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach saying the body would consider easing its stringent restrictions placed on protests by athletes. “The IOC Executive Board supports the initiative of the IOC athletes’ commission to explore different ways for athletes to express support for the principles enshrined in the Olympic charter in a dignified way,” Bach told a virtual news conference on Wednesday.
Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter currently bans any form political protest during the Olympics. “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas,” it states. Any display of political messaging, hand gestures, kneeling or disrupting medal ceremonies are a strict no-no at the Olympics.
PROTEST AT OLYMPICS While the IOC has tried to keep the Games free of political messaging, there are numerous instances of politics seeping in. The US and allies’ boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980, Soviet Russia and allies returning the favour four years later in Los Angeles, Adolf Hitler’s use of the Games to further Nazi state propaganda in 1936, are but a few examples.
There have also been some notable athletes’ political protests at the Games—none as prominent as American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Australian silver medallist Peter Norman stood in solidarity with the duo, wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge during the ceremony. It remains one of the Olympics’ most iconic moments.
The gesture, which came amid racial tensions in the US and protests against the war in Vietnam, would cost all three athletes their careers.
At the same Olympics, Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska turned her head away from the Soviet flag after losing out on the gold medal in one of her events to a gymnast from Soviet Union. The gesture was a protest against the USSR regime in the aftermath of the Prague Spring—a rare period of political liberalisation in Czechoslovakia—earlier that year. Caslavska retired after the Games but was banned from coaching because of her protest.
In 1906, Irish athlete Peter O’connor scaled a flagpole and hoisted a green flag with the words “Erin Go Bragh” (Ireland forever) after he was forced to represent Great Britain as Ireland didn’t have an Olympic committee. O’connor waved his green flag again when he won three gold medals at the Games. He didn’t face any sanction.