Three Man United and Bournemouth stars join those refusing to take the knee in Premier League – after Chelsea fans booed the gesture before Tottenham clash

Three more Premier League footballers decided against taking the knee during Sunday’s games.

Manchester United centre back Ayden Heaven and Bournemouth duo Rayan and Tyler Adams stayed standing before the two teams faced off at Old Trafford. 

All Liverpool and Brighton players took the knee at Anfield, as did every Crystal Palace and Newcastle player at Selhurst Park. 

The stance of Heaven, Rayan and Adams comes after both Issa Diop and Marc Guehi also didn’t take the knee before their games earlier this weekend.

Rayan and Adams both kept their stance from last week when they refused to take the knee ahead of Bournemouth’s victory over Sunderland, while Heaven didn’t feature in United’s draw at Leeds.

Last week, the Bournemouth duo were joined by Man City defender Guehi, Ipswich Town‘s Diop, Everton‘s Ainsley Maitland-Niles, and Leeds‘ Dominic Calvert-Lewin in not taking the knee. 

Footballers in England’s top flight have been given the opportunity to take the knee across two weekends this month in an effort to challenge discrimination.

This is part of the Premier League’s ‘No Room for Racism’ initiative. 

After last week’s snub, Guehi, who this week suggested taking the knee had ‘lost its meaning’, refused to kneel before kick-off at Villa Park as league leaders City took on Aston Villa, instead he remained standing and clapped.

When asked whether he had spoken to his players about taking the knee, City boss Enzo Maresca said: ‘No, the players are already aware of the information.’

The England star’s stance also followed Diop, who doubled down when Ipswich hosted Nottingham Forest at Portman Road. 

Diop was the only player among the 22 on the pitch to remain standing as Forest’s starters and his own team-mates all opted to take part. 

Diop has not spoken publicly about his stance but the move has divided players, some of whom view it as a hollow gesture. 

Maitland-Niles, meanwhile, was named on the bench for Everton’s trip to Arsenal, so was not on the field of play when the players observed the anti-racism gesture. 

The gesture was also met by a smattering of boos ahead of Tottenham’s clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge later on Saturday.

When asked about Calvert-Lewin’s viewpoint last week, Leeds manager Daniel Farke explained his striker’s thinking, 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.’ 

The campaign was previously enacted before every game until it stopped in August 2022 having been started in the UK in 2020 following the death of George Floyd in US police custody, which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

Subsequently, a decision was made to limit the gesture to match rounds falling during the No Room For Racism initiative.

It was agreed ahead of the season among Premier League captains that they would continue to perform the gesture twice over 38 rounds.

While the vast majority of players have taken part, some strong opposition has been voiced, notably by Wilfried Zaha in 2021, who said: ‘I feel like taking the knee is degrading, because growing up my parents just let me know that I should be proud to be black no matter what and I feel like we should just stand tall.’

And last year, the Lionesses chose not to kneel before their Euro 2025 semi-final against Italy following racist abuse aimed at defender Jess Carter on social media.

Captain Lucy Bronze said the anti-racism message is not ‘as strong as it used to be’ following the abuse of her team-mate.

‘It was driven by the group – obviously certain individuals more than others,’ Bronze explained. ‘I think it was just the fact that we feel as a collective, is the message as strong as it used to be? Is the message really hitting hard? Because to us it feels like it’s not if these things are still happening to our players in the biggest tournaments of their lives.

‘It’s about putting another statement out there to say, it’s something that still is a problem, it’s something that still needs to be put right. More needs to be done in football, more needs to be done in society. What that is right now as an individual, I don’t exactly know.’

More to follow…