PLAYERS IN SPLIT OVER BLM
Slogan may be ditched amid extremists fear
PREMIER League players are divided on whether to keep the Black Lives Matter slogan on their shirts and have left a decision on the sensitive issue until just days before the new season.
Some fear the movement has been hijacked by extremists, but the Premier League has said the decision rests with the players, whose views will be aired at a pre-season meeting of the club captains this week. The Mail on Sunday understands some players want to continue with the slogan. The representative of one BAME player indicated
that the individual in question felt ‘ very strongly’ about t he slogan’s part in the ongoing fight against bigotry.
But several sources have said that players are aware of the controversy the message attracted last season when the BLM message was hijacked by a group of extreme activists. They do not want to put themselves at the centre of an ongoing controversy.
There will be a wish to ensure that black and minority ethnic players are given a strong voice in the decision. Yet only two of the 20 Premier League captains are BAME: Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Leicester City’s Wes Morgan, who also sits on the league’s Black Participants Advisory Group.
The deliberations come amid new evidence of racist and homophobic abuse in football. The Kick it Out organisation last week reported 446 incidences of abuse during the 2019-20 season — a 42 per cent increase on the previous season — despite part of that campaign being played behind closed doors.
Kick it Out chairman Sanjay Bhandari said yesterday that demands for change initiated by Premier League players after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in the United States on May 25 needed to be maintained now.
He said: ‘We need the gestures to continue next season. Racial injustice and inequality didn’t just finish at the end of the season. The role of players is to push for change and that’s the greatest power they have. What the gestures are should be driven by them.’
A decision has been left to the last minute because players have only just returned to training. But it is a more complex one than the decision on whether to take a knee — which is set to continue when the new season starts.
The Premier League Black Lives Matter logo — designed by Alisha Hosannah, partner of the Watford striker Troy Dee ne y—was intended simply to send the message that it is unacceptable to treat black people differently to anyone else. However, a series of tweets from a ‘Black Lives Matter UK’ account included anti-Israel messages, with calls to defund the police and remove Met Commissioner Cressida Dick. The group’s Twitter feed has hijacked the distinctive black and yellow colour scheme of the original US campaign and has attracted 77,000 followers, with a crowdfunding campaign which has attracted donations of more than £1million. The group has refused to disclose whom its leaders are.
Some players feel strongly that this extreme fringe group should not be allowed to block a message which many feel strongly about.
Mr Bhandari said: ‘ The sentiments of the Black Lives Matter movement mean different things in different countries. In the context of British football, we want to see more black coaches, more Asian players, boardrooms that are not all white and all male and reductions in discrimination and an end to online hate. The players should be free to protest and symbolise their desire for change. I am neutral on what form that takes.’
The Premier League issued a statement when the rogue group’s activities came to light, saying it was ‘aware of the risk posed by groups that seek to hijack popular causes to promote their own political views’ and that ‘these actions are entirely unwelcome and are rejected.’
A compromise on the Black Lives Matter slogan would be the introduction of an alternative type of anti-racism messaging on shirts, though the imminent start of the season creates little time to design and agree on one.
Logistically, it is not a problem that the decision will be reached possibly 72 hours before the first games of the new campaign. Two shirts must be prepared for each player in the 30-man squads and the task of embossing either players’ names or a slogan is one day’s work for Premier League clubs’ kit staff.