FOOTBALL PLAYERS SHOW SUPPORT FOR GEORGE FLOYD AS THEY GET DOWN ON A KNEE

Liverpool, Chelsea and Newcastle players have all taken a knee in a show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement, following the death of American George Floyd.

Floyd died on May 25 after a white police officer, who has since been charged with his murder, held him down by pressing a knee into his neck.

A number of Liverpool players, including James Milner, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson, tweeted pictures of the squad on one knee around the centre circle at Anfield on Monday with the message, ‘Unity is strength #BlackLivesMatter’.

The squads at Chelsea and Newcastle followed suit on Tuesday, after footballers Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho had both called for “justice” over Floyd’s death, which has led to protests across the United States.

Manchester United forward Rashford said society is more divided than ever in a powerful anti-racism message on Monday.

The 22-year-old wrote on Twitter: “I know you guys haven’t heard from me in a few days. I’ve been trying to process what is going on in the world”.

It follows England team-mate Sancho revealing a message calling for “justice” after scoring for Borussia Dortmund on Sunday.

Sancho put Dortmund 2-0 up 57 minutes into their Bundesliga match against Paderborn, before removing his jersey to reveal an undershirt with a message reading “justice for George Floyd”.

Those tributes came after another Bundesliga player, Borussia Monchengladbach’s Marcus Thuram, went down on one knee after scoring earlier on Sunday in an apparent tribute to Floyd.

Thuram, the son of 1998 World Cup winner Lilian Thuram, briefly accepted the congratulations of his team-mates during the 4-1 win over Union Berlin, before dropping to his knee for five seconds with his head bowed.

Thuram later took to Twitter to say: “Together is how we move forward, together is how we make a change #BLACK–LIVES–MATTERS.”