American football players in the US and in London took part in mass protests this weekend after Donald Trump urged team bosses to fire players who refused to stand for the national anthem.
At Wembley, which hosted its own NFL fixture on Sunday, “more than 20 players and staff from Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars knelt or linked arms during the anthem,” the BBC reports.
Dozens of players across the US joined them, with players dropping to their knees or linking arms for the anthem at each of the 14 fixtures played on Sunday, in a symbolic gesture to draw attention to racial injustice.
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In Detroit, singer Rico LaVelle even ended his pre-game rendition of The Star Spangled Banner by dropping on one knee:
Former New York Giants player Osi Umenyiora, now a pundit for the BBC, told the broadcaster that the protests were “unlike anything I've ever seen before”.
They began in August 2016, when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat down on the field during the national anthem, saying he felt unable to “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color”.
After the first protest, the 29-year-old chose to kneel rather than sit, out of respect to serving military personnel.
Several other players, most of them black, have since adopted the pose - compared to the black power salute famously performed by US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games.
President Trump used a rally in Alabama on Friday to launch a fiery broadside at those protesting players, urging team bosses to strike them from their squads.
"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b***h off the field right now, out, he's fired,” Trump said, adding that such an owner would be “the most popular person in this country”.
He later continued his attack on Twitter, encouraging football fans to boycott teams whose players refused to stand for the anthem.
Some of the players who took part in Sunday’s protests denied that the kneeling stance was insulting or unpatriotic.
“There’s nothing that we’re saying we disrespect our country,” New York Giants defensive back Landon Collins told the New York Post. “It hurt me to take a knee. I was about to break down in tears. I love this country.
“But at the same time we respect each other, and we have a family over here, and we’re gonna fight for each other.”
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