Take the knee: NFL weighs protesting players’ passion against Donald Trump rebukes

National Football League officials will weigh the fervour of players who protest racism by kneeling for the national anthem against the anger of U.S. President Donald Trump at their two-day autumn meeting beginning on Tuesday in New York City.

Trump’s unflagging criticism of the symbolic gesture as unpatriotic, which he repeated as recently as Monday, has only made the practice more widespread. His calls for fans to boycott games if players persist is an unwelcome prospect even for the world’s highest-grossing sports league and have forced the topic high up the regularly scheduled meeting’s agenda.

An NFL spokesman said ahead of the meeting that the president may not see an outright ban on the act soon, if ever. “I anticipate a very productive presentation of things we can do to work together,” Joe Lockhart, the spokesman, told reporters ahead of the gathering of team owners, players and their union’s leaders at a Manhattan hotel. “Beyond that I don’t anticipate anything else.”

Trump wants the league to punish players with suspension if they kneel during the pre-game renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” saying on Monday the players were disrespecting the country. His vice president, Mike Pence, walked out of the stadium in Indianapolis earlier …read more