BLM SLOGAN MAY BE DITCHED WITH PLAYERS SPLIT ON ISSUE

ENGLISH 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 the 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’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 in the United States on May 25 needed to be maintained now.