CRYSTAL PALACE talisman Wilfried Zaha will no longer be taking the knee before matches. Zaha, an Ivory Coast international, has said the gesture is “degrading” and that black players should “stand tall”.
Players, staff and officials have taken the knee since football’s Project Restart last summer in a display of solidarity following the killing of George Floyd by an American police officer.
Speaking at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit, Zaha said: “Obviously I’ve said before that I feel like taking the knee is degrading and stuff because growing up my parents just let me know that I should be proud to be black no matter what and I feel like we should just stand tall.
“Because I feel like taking the knee now, it’s becoming…we do it before games and even sometimes people forget that we have to do it before games.
“Trying to get the meaning behind it, it’s becoming something that we just do now and that’s not enough for me. I’m not going to take the knee, I’m not going to wear Black Lives Matter on the back of my shirt because it feels like it’s a target.
“We’re isolating ourselves, we’re trying to say that we’re equal but we’re isolating ourselves with these things that aren’t even working anyway, so that’s my stand on it.
Wilfried Zaha: ‘I’m not here to tick boxes’
“I feel like we should stand tall and now I don’t really tend to speak on racism and stuff like that because I’m not here just to tick boxes.”
Earlier this week, Brentford mirrored Zaha’s stance. The West London club said they feel that taking the knee is no longer for them and will look at other ways of showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Queens Park Rangers are of the same opinion.
At the start of 2021, Nottingham Forest’s Lyle Taylor also stopped taking the knee. Taylor, formerly with Charlton, told BBC Radio Nottingham after his team’s win against Cardiff City: “My support for what is that we’re trying to achieve is absolute, but I do not support Black Lives Matter as an institution or organisation.
“I would request anyone looks into Black Lives Matter to look into what that organisation does and what they stand for because it’s scandalous that the world and the world’s media has got behind Black Lives Matter.
“Not the message, of course black lives matter. Standing behind Black Lives Matter and the all the institutions that have done that – the BBC, Sky, all of them saying Black Lives Matter, it’s not a good idea because of what the organisation stands for.
“The message overall is 100 percent important, don’t get me wrong on that. You see what is happening – I’m not going into my beliefs into what went on in the Capitol building this week because I’ve done my fair amount of research into it.
“In terms of black lives actually mattering and black people being killed by police more frequently, that’s not a good thing.
“Black lives do matter, but you’ll never hear me say Black Lives Matter again in reference to that company.”
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OMG! Young footballer out of his depth on social issues. I respect his opinion and bravery for saying it but boy is he wrong. He is probably not aware of how social change works. It’s tiring and awkward but ultimately better. “BLM as a company” oh dear!
Thanks to Zaha for making these points and being his own man. I’ve tried to make similar points myself but this perspective struggles to be recognised, in this publication too, where for what ever reason my comments are never published.
The irony of course is that it takes a footballer to get the message across, for some reason our society at the moment seems to regard footballers as the font of all wisdom, or you have to have some kind of celebrity to be taken seriously.
Thanks for publishing my comment.