Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has told Sky News players will take the knee at this weekend’s matches amid ongoing discussions about whether the anti-racism move is still effective.
Captains of the 20 clubs are understood to back the move, although players could decide individually to opt out.
The majority of Women’s Super League teams recently decided against taking the knee in games marking Black History Month, feeling it was no longer meaningful amid a rise in racism.
Sky News revealed last week that online racism cases in English football have quadrupled this season.
And in his exclusive interview, Mr Masters raised concerns about the anonymity of social media users posting abuse and questioned whether identity checks were now necessary.
The Premier League wants platforms to do more to change algorithms to stop players seeing the abuse, and to introduce additional protections to stop it reaching their inboxes.
Football frames racism as a societal problem – requiring education – and Sky News accompanied Mr Masters on a school visit in west London, where the Premier League linked up with Brentford.
Taking the knee
This weekend’s matches will highlight the league’s “No Room for Racism” campaign to combat discrimination and promote equality.
It was in 2020, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, that Premier League players started to take the knee before kick-off.
But questions about the effectiveness of the gesture have grown.
“It’s always been their choice,” Mr Masters told Sky News of the players. “It’s never been something that has been forced upon them, either collectively or individually. They had another discussion in the summer.
“They’re going to do it really at the No Room for Racism match rounds. We then decide whether they want to continue or stop. So I think they want to make sure whatever they do, it’s effective.”
‘You’ll be dealt with’
This is a season that began with Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo reporting being racially abused at Liverpool, although Mr Masters said “the protocols worked”.
He added: “A lot of our players and participants, managers, referees are subject to abuse, a lot of it racism.
“And we’re trying our best to deal with that, working with our stakeholders and working with the social media companies to try to solve those issues.”
For the league, that is not symptomatic of racist abuse becoming more prevalent in stadiums.
“The Premier League is a very permissive environment,” Mr Masters said. “Very few other places you can come and scream and shout and support your team.
“But I think that fans know where that line is. No violence, no threatened intimidation, and no discrimination. If you do, then you’ll be dealt with.”
Polarised society
The political climate can become problematic, although Mr Masters does not directly reference the summer’s anti-immigration protests when asked.
“Those are political issues, and I think that football’s role is to provide that distraction,” he said.
“Football stands slightly to the side to where society is at the moment, where we are seeing a little bit of polarisation of views. Football, I think, can help in that aspect.”
Social media anonymity
Too many feel they can hurl racist abuse at footballers on social media – and Mr Masters insists the league is “very restless” about eradicating that.
Greater identity checks could help.
Mr Masters said: “There’s an anonymity to it, I think, which, perhaps wrongly, in my view, gives people the view that they can pretty much say and do what they want.
“And I just simply don’t think it should be part of a professional footballer’s life to have to put up with this sort of stuff, which is why we’re taking what action we can.
“Obviously, anything that makes it easier [to find the perpetrators] I would be in principle supportive of, but I think it goes to a lot of other issues around freedom of information.”
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AI and algorithms
There is a unit at the Premier League dedicated to pursuing social media firms over racist abuse, which has no complaints publicly about the conduct of the tech giants.
But the league’s director of content protection, Tim Cooper, told Sky News: “The platforms can do more by changing their algorithms, looking at the opting in to see abuse rather than perhaps opting out of seeing it. That would be a step in the right direction.
“And ultimately, it’s for us to keep trying to push cases through and get good real-world deterrent actions, alongside law enforcement and other enforcement bodies around the world.”
There are concerns about the use of AI to create racist images and abusers using phrases or jumbled letters to circumvent algorithms.
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“It’s very much gone beyond just a text rant now, which is obviously bad enough, but now we’re seeing that people are using images to create some of the most offensive things that you could imagine,” Mr Cooper said.
“I think video will be something in the future going forward that could be a problem, and we have seen that with deepfakes.”
Instagram owner Meta and Elon Musk‘s X both said they would not provide detail about any work to eradicate racism – declining months of requests for interviews.
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Being on social media means children are more aware than ever of incidents of racist abuse across football.
After leading the class in west London, Premier League Primary Stars coordinator Benjamin Abrahams said: “Having to speak to young pupils about things they’ve heard, things they know about, can sometimes be tough.
“But actually, it’s a great chance to speak to them and have those open conversations. To discuss why things are said, why things happen, but [why] it’s not right, and be able to discuss what is correct and what should we all hope for.”
