Joshua Kimmich, of Bayern Munich, has said white players should join their black teammates in protesting at the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd.
On a day when the German FA announced that after leading protests in the Bundesliga against the killing of Floyd, Jadon Sancho, Marcus Thuram, Achraf Hakimi, and Weston McKennie would not be sanctioned, Kimmich said all footballers had a duty to stand up against racism.
“It’s good that this is not just one player. Maybe it’s also a choice to have a team say something. Football is like a role model, so it is not possible to have anything like racism naturally in normal life-but particularly in football. We are one nation, one club, one team of footballers. Whether you’re black or white it doesn’t matter. As with Sancho, we as footballers have a lot of influence to reach out to other people, to be role models, and to say something. What we’re telling people outside gives us a huge opportunity to make a statement,” said the midfielder from Bayern.
Sancho and Hakimi lifted their shirts during Borussia Dortmund ‘s win against Paderborn on Sunday to show “Justice for George Floyd” messages while Thuram took a knee after scoring for Borussia Mönchengladbach against Union Berlin. McKennie, midfielder of Schalke ‘s USA, had “Justice for George Floyd” on a necklace, too.
Kimmich was fascinated by the demonstrations and announced that the players of Bayern are preparing to make a statement about discrimination. “We talked about it and perhaps we can do something about it. Perhaps we have to do something because we can’t give a place to something like this” the German international said.
