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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Christopher Megrath

'We should be talking about why': John Barnes tells GMB more needs to be done on race

Liverpool legend John Barnes said more needs to be done to tackle racism as it was confirmed top footballers would stop taking the knee before each game.

Over the past 18 months, Premier League players have been taking the knee before matches to stand against racism. The gesture originated in America when players chose to kneel during the playing of the US national anthem to call attention to the issues of racial inequality and police brutality.

This week the Premier League's club captains announced players would no longer regularly take the knee as the gesture would be saved for bigger, important games. Liverpool legend John Barnes joined the Good Morning Britain team to discuss the topic and what he thought had come from it.

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Presenter Ben Shephard asked John if he thought momentum has built around anti-racism topics since the gesture became widespread but the pundit admitted little had changed. He said: "Well, we've been taking a knee now for 18 months and I don't think the conversation has even started because the conversation always has been shall we take a knee or shan't we take a knee.

"And now we're talking about we're not going to take a knee. Therefore, when we talk about building momentum, the momentum is not building at all, the momentum hasn't even started. We should be talking about why we take the knee and how we're going to change it.

"We have to dismantle the widely held theory of racial and gender inequality and we're not talking about that. We're talking about whether or not we should take the knee."

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