Romanian footballer Nicolae Stanciu did not kneel in support of the Black Lives Matter movement before the start of the preparatory match in England.
He expressed his solidarity with his teammate from Prague’s Slavia, Ondřej Kúdela, who received a ten-match penalty from UEFA for allegedly racist insulting his opponent Glen Kamara from Rangers.
Romania’s players taking the knee. Some of the fans booed the moment. Slavia Prague’s Nicolae Stanciu and AEK Athens’ Nedelcearu refused to kneel. #ENG pic.twitter.com/zfbDiiY5d2
– Emanuel Rosu (@Emishor) June 6, 2021
Before the kick-off in Middlesbrough, 20 players knelt on the lawn, leaving only Stanciu and another Romanian national team member, Ionut Nedelcear. “I did it to show solidarity with Kudela, my teammate from Slavia. He received a ten-match penalty without evidence. I do not believe that kneeling is the solution,” the 28-year-old midfielder, whose team lost to the favored England 0: 1, told Romanian television.
In April, the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Committee punished Kúdel for an incident in the 87th minute of a rematch of the European League round of 16 in Glasgow, which Slavia won 2-0 and advanced.
After the Czech stopper whispered something to him, the midfielder Kamara accused his opponent of calling him a monkey. Kúdela admitted that he treated the Finnish dark-skinned player vulgarly, but denies the racist insult from the beginning.
The Appeals Committee upheld the disciplinary’s verdict, but the 34-year-old representative, who will lose the European Championships, appealed to the International Sports Arbitration (CAS) in Lausanne.
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