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Bayern Munich defender Jerome Boateng plans to use the Champions League knockout stages to continue sending messages of equality and anti-racism by taking a knee.
Bundesliga clubs used their platform to send various messages of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and pay their respects to George Floyd — who died in police custody in Minnesota after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
The German league was the first to return post-Covid-19 lockdown and Premier League teams followed their example to send powerful messages of anti-racism by all teams and officials collectively taking a knee prior to kick-off.
Bayern play Chelsea on Aug. 8 in their Champions League round-of-16 second-leg knockout match, and with the Bundesliga club one of the favourites to win Europe’s top competition, Boateng hopes they can use their platform to send more anti-racism support to the watching world.
When asked if Bayern planned to take a knee during the Champions League and if these messages need to continue, Boateng said: “I think it’s very powerful and very important that we continue this in the Champions League, especially of course in the final, because the whole world will look. I think it’s important to continue, and also in other sports, and hopefully in some sports that are not back yet, hopefully they will join us.”
Boateng spoke in June about the importance of education around racism and called on others in football to show their support.
Talking on a news conference on Tuesday, Boateng spoke of how he talked with teammates Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka about his own personal experiences of racism.
“They asked me how to support, how does it feel, what happened to you when you were younger, so I could tell them my story, what were my experiences, and why is it so painful and hard to hear those things, or [to have those] experiences, and then imagine people who are younger, maybe they face this for the first time, what you can do, how can people support it,” Boateng said.
“There are some situations of course that are really hard to help, but you can always help in a situation.”