‘A little less conversation’: an exploration of soccer fan attitudes towards ‘the knee’ protest and the anti-racism message

ABSTRACT

Taking the knee has become an enduring feature of many sports since 2020: it is a powerful social and political gesture signalling a resistance against racism, not only in sports but in all forms. The research sampled 1001 sports fans, inviting them to share their beliefs, experiences and perspectives on racism in football. In particular, they were asked whether the knee should remain an expression of the sport’s fight against racism. While 34.8% believed it was a worthwhile gesture and should remain, 65.2% opposed its continuance. The reasons are varied but shared a basic assumption: that the gesture has replaced the actual fight against racism. In other words, football has effectively done little to combat racism and instead offers a symbolic ritual of opposition. This finding contrasts with popular understandings of aversion to the knee, which presume it is a racist reaction. The present study concludes it is quite the opposite: fans accept football’s disapproval of racism, but question the efficacy of the knee in countering it. “What change has it actually made?’ one fan asked rhetorically “‘We need action not continuous posturing’ demanded another. “A little less conversation.” The authors conclude: 1. Fans do not object to the sport they feel belongs to them being used to promote good causes. 2. While objectors to the knee are not motivated by racism,racism still has a residual presence in football. 3. Fans urge football’s organizing bodies to clamp down on racism with severe punishments rather than ground closures or fines. 4. Fans see the knee as window dressing, disguising football’s failure effectively to challenge racism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Doyle, ‘Aston Villa and Sheffield United players take the knee and wear Black Lives Matter shirts for Premier League football’s return at Villa Park’.

2. Bradford Edwards and Harris, ‘Black Lives Matter (Special Reports)’.

3. Boren, ‘A timeline of Colin Kaepernick’s protests against police brutality’.

4. See Schmidt et al., ‘An analysis of Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe and the national anthem protests’; and Martin and McHendry, ‘Patriotism, protests, and professional sports’.

5. Edwards, ‘The revolt of the black athlete’.

6. Towler et al., ‘Shut up and play’.

7. Major sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the National Football League (NFL) in the US, initially refused to allow the gesture, recognizing it would compromise the traditional stance on political and partisan actions. The NFL changed its position in 2020 and the IOC prior to the Tokyo Olympics. These and many other sports, including cricket, now approve kneeling before games. See Sherwood, ‘NFL decision to permit kneeling protest by players enrages Donald Trump’, and BBC, ‘What’s taking the knee and why is It Important?’.

8. Collective support for athlete activism is a relatively new phenomenon. Across time, athletes were deterred from making pronouncements or becoming engaged in controversial issues, probably because of their ties with commercial sponsors. Global companies were never explicit in their policies but must surely have advised their well-rewarded ‘brand ambassadors’ that political controversy was never welcome. See Powell, ‘Souled out?’; Cunningham and Regan, ‘Political activism, racial identity and the commercial endorsement of athletes’.

9. Mercer, ‘Millwall fans boo as players take the knee’.

10. Doyle, ‘England fans boo players taking the knee’.

11. Walker, ‘Praise for Gareth Southgate after he explains why players take the knee’.

12. For example, see the BBC factsheet here.

13. Cleland, ‘Racism’.

14. Hylton, ‘Race, Racism and football’.

15. See Conway, ‘…Hidden resistance to hiring black managers’; Burdsey, ‘Race, ethnicity, and football’; and Hylton, ‘Race and Sport’.

16. MacDonald, ‘Dialogues on whiteness’ (p. 9).

17. See Reuters, ‘FIFA introduces harsher punishment’.

18. See Burdsey, ‘Racism and English Football: For Club and Country’.

19. Cleland and Cashmore, ‘Fans, Racism and British Football’.

20. Ranhawa, ‘Marrying passion and professionalism: Examining the future of British Asian Football’.

21. Cleland and Cashmore, ‘Fans, Racism and British Football’.

22. Cleland et al., ‘Online Research Methods in Sports Studies’.

23. Salmons, ‘Doing Qualitative Research Online’.

24. University approval number: 26,731.

25. Fernandez et al., ‘More comprehensive and inclusive approaches to demographic data collection’.

26. Through personal communication, the authors were sent figures from the English Premier League’s (EPL) annual consumers research for the 2018/19 season, demonstrating that 15% of those attending EPL games were from the BAME adult population. Also see Conway and Anka ‘Why are football crowds so white?’.

27. For example, Clavio’s population analysis into the social demographics of sports form members in the US revealed that 88% were male, 91% were white, 77% were at least 30 years old, with 25% aged 50 or over. Gibbons and Dixon ‘Surfs Up!’, also point out that being a soccer forum attender increases the likelihood of match attendance.

28. Miles and Hubermann, ‘Qualitative Data Analysis’.

29. Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Towards an Interpretive theory of culture’.

30. McDonald, ‘Dialogues on Whiteness’.

31. Crawford, ‘Consuming Sport’.

32. Dixon ‘Consuming Football in Late modern Life’.

33. Bob Hoskins (1942–2014) was a British film actor who also starred in an award-winning advertising campaign for British Telecom in the 1990s. His catchphrase, ‘It’s good to talk’. https://www.marketingweek.com/inside-story-bt-its-good-to-talk/.

34. Parnell et al., ‘The pursuit of lifelong participation’; Parnell and Pringle, ‘Football and Health Improvement’, Dixon et al., ‘Using football cultures as a vehicle for Improving mental health in men’; Curran et al., ‘Tackling mental health: the role of professional football clubs’.

35. See Dixon, ‘Show Racism the Red Card’.

36. See Cashmore and Dixon, ‘Studying Football’, p.2.

37. Hylton, ‘Black Lives Matter In Sport?’.

38. Ibid (p.42).

39. Mokbel, ‘England “fans” that heckled their own team taking the knee are a DISGRACE’.

40. For example, a 2021 YouGov report (featuring a quantitative survey of 320 ethnic minority adults) found that 33% had personally experienced racial abuse and 38% had witnessed someone else receiving racial abuse at a football stadium – See, YouGov ‘A third of ethnic minority football fans have experienced racism at stadiums’. Qualitative research has also explored the match-day experience from a BAME perspective. See Lawrence and Davis, ‘Fans for diversity? A Critical Race Theory analysis of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) supporters’ experiences of football fandom’. Recent Incidents have been reported in the media too. In February 2015 Chelsea Football Club suspended three people from Stamford Bridge after footage emerged of Chelsea fans preventing a black man from boarding a train on the Paris Metro – See Royle and Harlow ‘Football and racism: How are ethnic minority fans treated?’ In November 2021, footage emerged of West Ham United fans chanting racial abuse on an airplane prior to a European match in Belgium – See Dean, ‘West Ham vow to ban fans caught singing anti-Semitic songs’.

41. Ingle, ‘Wilfried Zaha declares he will stop taking the knee’.

42. O’Brien, ‘One In three English Football League clubs abandon taking the knee against racism’.

43. QPR, ‘Club statement: Taking the knee’.

44. Cahill, ‘Children and civility’.

45. Bourdieu, ‘Outline of a Theory of Practice’.

46. Kilby, ‘Individualism, Ideology and talking about lives that matter’.

47. Rosser, ‘Ivan Tony: players being used as puppets’.

48. Whitson, ‘Circuits of promotion: media, marketing, and the globalisation of sport’.

49. Bradish & Cronin, ‘Corporate social responsibility in sport’.

50. Westra, ‘Virtue signalling and moral progress’ p.158.

51. Tosi and Warmke, ‘Moral Grandstanding’.

52. Virtue signalling was an unspoken issue during cricket’s T20 World Cup in 2021: South Africa’s Quinton de Kock was mysteriously missing after he refused to take the knee. Cricket South Africa, the governing organization, explained it had insisted all players made the gesture ‘to align and unify’ the stance against racism. De Kock opposed racism, but apparently, objected to the overall mandate, regardless of individuals’ consciences and personal convictions. Cricket South Africa, it seems, were eager to signal its high moral standards – its virtuousness – and made its players exhibit this. See Holmes, ‘Quinton de Kock has broken his silence and may have changed how the world sees him’.

53. Tosi and Warmke, ‘Grandstanding: The use and abuse of moral talk’.

54. Zaki and Cikara, ‘Viewpoint: In defence of virtue signalling’.

55. Welton, ‘England players being booed for taking the knee considered “a racist act” by officials’.