Man United star refuses to take knee in final weekend of Premier League's 'No Room for Racism' initiative
Nana Akua shares her thoughts on Premier League players taking the knee | GB NEWS. Heaven became the seventh player to remain standing over the two weekends ahead of United's Old Trafford clash with Bournemouth, after missing the previous weekend's draw at Leeds.
Bournemouth's Rayan and Tyler Adams also did not kneel before the match, keeping the position they held the previous Sunday before their win over Sunderland. Marc Guehi, the Manchester City and England defender, opted to stand and clap rather than kneel before his side's match against Aston Villa at Villa Park on Saturday, having said the gesture had "lost its meaning".
Issa Diop took a similar stance at Portman Road, where the Ipswich centre-back was the sole player to refuse to kneel as his club hosted Nottingham Forest. Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin also rejected the knee for a second successive weekend, standing before the late kick-off against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
The Premier League has offered players the chance to take the knee across two weekends in October as part of its ongoing campaign against discrimination. At Stamford Bridge, the gesture was met with boos before Chelsea played Tottenham.
Last weekend's round of fixtures saw a broader group of players not take the knee, including Guehi, Diop, Calvert-Lewin, and Everton's Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Maitland-Niles was named among the substitutes for Everton's visit to Arsenal this weekend, meaning he was not on the pitch when the gesture took place.
Leeds manager Daniel Farke shed light on Calvert-Lewin's reasoning last week, saying: "Dom is more or less like: 'No, I don't go down. I show my respect by standing up'.
Every individual is different and shows respect for this campaign in a different way. It's definitely a good campaign and a good topic that football and sports, in general, support situations like this because a dressing room is a perfect example of how we should all live together.
Different passports, different languages, different religions, but they are all together as human beings and friends who work together toward one target. This is how the world should be.
Premier League players initially knelt before every match, but that changed in August 2022, when they focused on selected occasions. The issue also divided opinion during England's Euro 2025 campaign, when the Lionesses stopped kneeling before their semi-final against Italy after defender Jess Carter suffered racist abuse online."