England players refuse to take knee and stand up in message about racist abuse

England's player stuck to their words and refused to take the knee ahead of their Women's European Championship semi-final against Italy. The squad had announced they would take the step after team-mate Jess Carter opened up on the racial abuse she has received during the tournament, with Lionesses midfielder Georgia Stanway reinforcing the decision the day before the game.

“It’s just to change it up," Stanway said. "We felt like the knee was just a little bit repetitive, we felt like it’s come to a point where the knee isn’t doing what we wanted it to do, so now our decision is to stand and hopefully that will bring up more conversation, more change and hopefully get the topic [spoken about].”

Piara Powar, head of football's international anti-discrimination body, Fare, questioned the move. "Powerful actions are needed right now, to deal with the issues that are being played out as we speak," Powar said, though he defended the Lioness' right to make the decision they have.

When asked about Powar's comments, Stanway stressed that it waa a collective decision from the squad to not take the knee. "We've decided not to take the knee because we want more action to be made," she said.

"We want to create more of a talking point and a point to make more change. That starts with social media and people having access to be able to do certain things. So our stance and opinion stay the same, and that's what we've decided as a collective. "

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Over the weekend, fellow Lionesses star Lucy Bronze spoke about how the group came to their decision. "It was driven by the group - obviously certain individuals more than others," the right-back said.

"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.

"But it's something that us collectively as a team and as a federation we want to work towards, we wanna make changes. This is a small step trying to create another change."

Carter was dropped to the bench for the game with Italy, with Sarina Wiegman confirming it was a tactical decision to deal with the threat of their opponents.

On Monday, Wiegman was asked about the prospect of pulling Carter out of the firing line for the match in Geneva. "Of course we had conversations," Wiegman said. "Although it is a hard situation, Jess is a very strong person and she wants to move on too.

"She also felt - as we did - that we had to address this. You can't just let it go, so we did [not]. And then we know that there's a match going on. We want to perform. We're ready to peform. She's ready to perform and compete, and that says a lot about her and the team."

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