Manchester City defender Marc Guehi believes the gesture of footballers taking the knee before matches might have lost its impact and wants to see more done in the sport’s fight against racism.
“We have to see how we can move the campaign along. “Dom is more or less like, No, I don’t go down. It isn’t the first time Guehi refused to perform the gesture, which was introduced in June 2020 to show support for the Black Lives Matter campaign. Since the start of the 2022-23 season, the Premier League has decided against taking the knee ahead of every match, with players instead invited to do so on certain occasions each season. I show my respect by standing up, more or less,’” Leeds manager Daniel Farke said after the match, in which Calvert-Lewin scored in a 1-1 draw.
Guehi, who is Black, didn’t take the knee prior to kickoff in City’s home game against Ipswich in the Premier League on Saturday (October 17, 2026) in the first of two rounds of games dedicated to the competition’s “No Room For Racism” campaign. Speaking Monday (October 19) at a news conference the day before City’s Champions League match against AEK Athens, Guehi said it was “great” that the Premier League’s anti-racism campaign was continuing. “Whether more can be done — more can always be done,” he said.
In 2021, Wilfried Zaha — a Black player who was at Crystal Palace at the time — said he would no longer be taking the knee, describing the gesture as “degrading.
Premier League CEO Richard Masters said the current “No Room For Racism” initiative, which comes during the U.K.’s Black History Month, intends to use “the reach of our players to send an important message: we are united in the fight against racism.”