France footballers abandoned plans to ‘take the knee’ before their crunch European Championship match against Germany – because of fears that the gesture was ‘dividing more than uniting’.
Les Bleus, a team full of Premier League stars, had planned to go down on one knee before Tuesday’s game against Germany in Munich, which they won 1-0.
Many of the players have backgrounds in former French colonies such as Algeria and Mali, and are acutely sensitive to racism
But they were troubled by fierce arguments played out in the media before the game, and so decided to abandon the gesture.