I understand the temptation but sport is not the right platform for political symbols

I ENJOYED seeing NFL players take a knee during the US national anthem at Wembley on Sunday in a bid to highlight racial injustice in their country.

And I was pleased to hear FIFA had scrapped their poppy ban on the same day.

But, even so, I’m beginning to lean towards the idea that political statements, symbols and gestures ought to be outlawed from sport altogether.

I know the poppy isn’t meant to be a political symbol. It’s a symbol of sacrifice, a symbol which says we remember our war dead.

But in some parts of Belfast, for example, it is deemed highly offensive, a symbol of British imperialism, and no doubt there are others who see it that way too.

There will always be a fine dividing line over such matters.

So for me it boils down to this: Do we want sport to be one big political vehicle or do we want it to be something that people from all colours, creeds, political and religious backgrounds come to enjoy completely in isolation? I would go for the latter. And what I’d like to see now is FIFA, the FA, the NFL – all of the world’s leading sporting bodies – coming together to discuss those two questions and drawing up a set of guidelines to keep politics and sport apart.

Sport obviously gives people huge platforms to get their message across, so I understand why the temptation is there to use it. With respect to the Black Doctors’ Union or Black Policemen’s Union in the States, their voice will never be heard on the same scale as the voices of American footballers.

But rather than us all talking about the game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens, all I’ve heard centred on the pre-match gesture aimed at Donald Trump. And I’m against anything that takes away from people walking into a stadium or an arena purely for their fix of sport.

FIFA have backed down in their stance that the Home Nations shouldn’t wear poppies to commemorate Armistice Day in November and Germany, against whom a friendly is planned, have said they will have no problems with England doing so.

But maybe those of us who choose to wear poppies could wear them and a wreath could be laid without having to have them stitched on to the Three Lions shirts.

We never needed to do that in years gone by.

Don’t get me wrong, nobody wears their poppy with more pride than me. My grandad was at the Somme and fought twice, so the poppy is very special for me.

But I also recognise not everyone feels that way about it and I’m also pretty certain he didn’t fight just so an England footballer earning £200,000 a week could have a little poppy stitched into his shirt.

He fought so we could have freedoms politically and lead our lives as we wished.

I’m not saying I know where the line is, what I’m saying is sports’ governing bodies need a proper debate.

And once the line has been defined we should stick to it. app at www.collymore.com Sign up to listen to Call Collymore through Stan’s new

PROTEST Jacksonville Jaguars players took the knee at Wembley