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LONDON: Donald Trump’s tweet storm over NFL players taking the knee during the national anthem took the sport by surprise but the gridiron greats are ready to turn the furore into something positive, according to Ahmed Nassar, president of the licensing wing of the NFL Players Association.
While known for big hits and touchdowns, all the talk about American football over the past two weeks has been dominated by players protesting police brutality and racial inequality by kneeling during the pre-game rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner.
That is not least because President Trump waded into the debate during a speech urging NFL owners to fire players who kneel during the anthem, and encouraging fans to walk out.
Since then the president has taken to Twitter to further lash out at the players, which has only led to more players taking the knee with the support of the clubs’ owners.
The protest started 13 months ago when Colin Kaepernick, then playing for the San Francisco 49ers but now without a team, took the knee during the US national anthem to provoke debate about racial inequality across the country.
But while the situation has seemingly set the sport and its players up against the president, Nassar said NFL players are determined to ensure some good comes out of the crisis.
“It’s caught everybody by surprise. It was an issue last year when Colin first started doing that. It certainly exploded once the president resurfaced it,” Nassar told Arab News.
“Colin’s not in the league and there was already an issue in that regard. In March, Colin said he would stand for the anthem if he were to be back on a team. Why we’re still top of mind in that way is anyone’s guess. We hold out hope it can be a net positive in that it’s brought players and teams, if not together, at least it's forced some hard conversations that were potentially being buried or avoided to this point. I view that as a good thing.
“We view sports as a great unifier, we were at the Vatican last year and the Pope said the same thing. Sport is loved for bringing people together, bringing people together through sport to overcome differences.”
The whole situation has shone a spotlight on players’ activism and charitable giving. That is what Nassar and the NFL Players Association wanted to highlight during a recent roundtable discussion in London. They highlighted the work of JJ Watt, the Houston Texans player who raised over $30 million for those affected by Hurricane Harvey; his goal at the start was to raise $200,000.
“I think players are interested in as broad a sense as possible. The players right now are in the early stages of figuring out where this goes from here,” Nassar said.
“It’s not so much what’s happening on the field prior to a game, but what is happening off the field with these athletes who care very much about their communities and respect very much their communities, their fans and the military.
“All these things you have seen brought up these past 10 days, and I think that’s where you see the real positive change begin to take root.”