By Samindra Kunti
June 11 – Taking the knee, a gesture against racism, keeps dividing football ahead of Euro 2020 and Friday’s opener between Italy and Turkey. Hungarian president Victor Orban has defended his football federation’s decision to not take the knee claiming that sports and politics don’t mix, while Croatia will leave it to its players to decide.
Earlier, this week the Hungarian Football Federation (MLSZ) announced that its players will not take the knee during the European Championship, but following a tumultuous friendly with Ireland where local fans booed the visitors taking the knee the country’s head of state Orban came out in defense of the Hungarians saying “politics has no place in sports”.
Orbán said Hungarians only kneel on three occasions: before God, before their country, and when they ask for the hand of their lovers. He also took a swipe at other nations when he said that Hungarians do not have the moral duty of those from countries that had slavery. “Hungary has never been a slave-keeping country,” said Orban. “We cannot feel that moral weight that those countries do.
“It doesn’t help to bring that heavy moral historical burden on to a football pitch, it doesn’t liberate them from it … This is not a solution.”
Meanwhile, the Croatian Football Federation (CFF) has said it will let its players decide whether to take the knee. The 2018 World Cup runners-up will play England at Wembley in their opening game.
The CFF wrote: “The Croatian Football Federation believes that the players have a right to their own opinion on these topics, and that they also have a right to choose whether they want to engage in any activity.
“The players of the Croatian national team jointly decided ahead of the friendly match against Belgium that they will not take the knee and they respectfully stood in silence during the kneeling of their Belgian colleagues.
“The Croatian Football Federation respects their stance on this and will not impose taking the knee as an obligation for Croatian players, as this gesture does not hold any symbolic ties to the fight against racism and discrimination in the context of Croatian culture and tradition.”
France and Belgium have committed to taking the knee, but Germany and the Netherlands have opted against it. They have focused on broader human rights issues, tied to worker rights in Qatar, the host for the 2022 World Cup.
The head of the Polish FA Zbigniew Boniek said he was “absolutely against such actions” and argued that “footballers sometimes knee and if you asked some of them why they were kneeling, they wouldn’t even know”.
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