To knee or not to knee
Analysis by The Telegraph suggests as many as 18 of the 24 teams taking part in the Euros will not be taking the knee, with several countries opting instead to back a politically neutral campaign supporting racial equality and human rights. The toxic standoff between Gareth Southgate’s team and its supporters intensified on Monday (NZT) when fans again loudly booed the gesture before the team’s final pre-tournament warm-up game against Romania. Boris Johnson has said in the past that he would not take the knee because he does not believe in ‘‘gestures’’ and his official spokesman yesterday repeatedly refused to say it was wrong for fans to boo players if they objected to it. Brendan Clarke-smith, the Conservative MP who drew the comparison between taking the knee and players making a Nazi salute in 1938, said: ‘‘The main point I’m trying to make is that we should be keeping politics and football separate.’’ His comments were described as ‘‘offensive’’ by a leading anti-semitism campaigner. Amid a growing row between the British Government and sporting bodies over ‘‘woke’’ behaviour, the England football team’s decision to carry on taking the knee when Euro 2020 starts this weekend has come under intense scrutiny. The issue of taking the knee threatens to overshadow England’s Euro 2020 preparations, with increasing numbers of fans hostile to the gesture which has become a pre-match ritual over the past year. Although players insist that dropping down on one knee before kickoff is simply a show of support for racial equality, others say it cannot be separated from the more radical politics of the Black Lives Matter movement. One MP even compared taking the knee to England players being forced to make Nazi salutes before a 1938 match in Hitler’s Germany, saying ‘‘the mixing of politics and football had disastrous consequences’’.