Mail Online

League want Lukaku for knee talks

By James Sharpe

PREMIER LEAGUE bosses will this week contact Romelu Lukaku to discuss his views on taking the knee and the fight against racism.

It comes after the Chelsea striker questioned whether the gesture is having a strong enough impact as clubs across the Football League remain divided over the issue.

Lukaku’s team-mate Marcos Alonso has stopped taking the knee because he believes it is ‘losing a bit of strength’ and instead stood and pointed to the No Room for Racism badge on his sleeve ahead of Chelsea’s match yesterday. He joined Brentford’s Ivan Toney, Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha and Watford duo Emmanuel Dennis and Juraj Kucka as top-flight players who no longer take the knee.

Outside the Premier League, both sides took the knee in 18 of the 33 matches in the EFL while 11 games featured only one team doing so.

Lukaku has been the victim of racism during his career and has called on club captains and organisations to sit down with social media companies to get them to do more to stop abuse.

‘I think we can take stronger positions, basically,’ Lukaku told CNN. ‘Yes, we are taking the knee, but in the end, everybody’s clapping but... sometimes after the game, you see another insult.

‘The captains of every team, and four or five players, like the big personalities of every team, should have a meeting with the CEOs of Instagram and governments and the FA and the PFA, and we should just sit around the table and have a big meeting about it.’

Premier League chiefs want to speak to Lukaku and will approach him via Chelsea or club captain Cesar Azpilicueta. They want to discuss the work they are doing to tackle inequality. The FA are understood to have already approached Lukaku to welcome his views.

Football

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2021-09-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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