Dortmund (Germany) (AFP) – Borussia Dortmund players showed their support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in the United States by taking a knee at a training session on Thursday.
Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho and Achraf Hakimi were cleared of wrongdoing by the German FA earlier in the week after revealing the message “Justice for George Floyd” on an undershirt during Sunday’s win at Paderborn.
Centre-back Mats Hummels posted the photo of 28 players kneeling in the shape of a heart on a playing field on Twitter.
“We the players of Borussia Dortmund fully support the Black Lives Matter Movement,” he said.
“We don’t accept racism of any kind. For an open minded and tolerant world, for a better world,” he added.
Earlier on Thursday, Hummels’ former Germany and Bayern Munich team-mate Jerome Boateng called on more famous white sportspeople to add their voices to the chorus of outrage against the death of Floyd.
Floyd, a black American man, died on May 25 after a white policeman kneeled on his neck for several minutes. It has sparked eight days of protests in US cities, some of which have turned violent amid accusations of further police brutality used against demonstrators.
On Monday, the Premier League’s Liverpool published a similar photo at their Anfield home.
Made famous by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during pre-game renditions of the US national anthem, bending down on one knee has become a symbol in the fight against racial injustice.
