Romelu Lukaku (Getty Images)
Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku feels a need
for football to adopt “stronger positions” than just taking the knee.
Earlier this week, Chelsea defender Marcos
Alonso explained his decision to stop taking the knee before matches instead of
standing and pointing to his shirt’s ‘No To Racism’ badge. He felt the act had
lost some of its impact.
Last season, Crystal Palace forward
Wilfried Zaha stopped taking the knee instead of standing in his protest
against racism and discrimination.
Belgian forward Lukaku can understand those
viewpoints, with online abuse continuing despite the players’ direct action.
“I think we can take stronger
positions, basically,” Lukaku told CNN Sport.
“Yeah, we are taking the knee, but in
the end, everybody’s clapping but sometimes after the game, you see another
insult.”
Lukaku returned to Chelsea during the
summer and has made an impressive start to the season, his goals helping push
Thomas Tuchel’s men joint top of the Premier League.
The 28-year-old wants high-profile players
to sit down with social media bosses and other stakeholders to help talk
through a positive solution to the continuing issue of racism on their
platforms.
“The captains of every team, and four
or five players, like the big personalities of every team, should have a
meeting with the CEOs of Instagram and governments and the FA and the PFA, and
we should just sit around the table and have a big meeting about it,”
Lukaku said.
“How we can attack it straight away,
not only from the men’s game but also from the women’s game.
“I think just all of us together and
just have a big meeting and have a conference and just talk about stuff that
needs to be addressed to protect the players, but also to protect fans and
younger players that want to become professional footballers.”
Lukaku added: “If you want to stop
something, you can really do it.
“We as players, we can say: ‘Yeah, we
can boycott social media,’ but I think it’s those companies that have to come
and talk to the teams, or to the governments, or to the players themselves and
find a way how to stop it because I really think they can.”
Lukaku was speaking to CNN Sport around the
launch of Chelsea’s ‘No To Hate’ photography competition.
The competition is encouraging fans of the
club around the world to send in their photos that show the diversity within
the Chelsea community and how football can be a unifying factor against hatred
and discrimination in any form.
“I think right now, from the owner to
us, the players, we as a club, we are really putting out a statement and taking
a position that stuff like that should not be tolerated,” the Blues
forward said.
“Because, in our team, we have a lot
of players that represent the club from different nationalities, different skin
colours, different religions, also the women’s team where it’s the same thing.
“So, I think us as a club, I think we
should be an example for the other teams and basically say that you know,
whenever a form of discrimination is happening that the club is taking a strong
position and prosecuting everything that’s happening in the stands.”
Lukaku is firmly behind the drive for
equality throughout the game, on and off the pitch.
“I have to fight because I’m not fighting
only for myself. I’m fighting for my son, for my future kids, for my brother,
for all of the other players and their kids, you know, for everybody,” he
said.
“At the end of the day, football
should be an enjoyable game. You cannot kill the game by discrimination. That
should never happen.
“Football is joy, it’s happiness, and
it shouldn’t be a place where you feel unsafe because of the opinion from some
uneducated people.”
Discussion about this post