Marcus Rashford says England players will continue to take the knee despite booing

Marcus Rashford has announced that England players will continue to take the knee throughout the Euros tournament, despite a number of fans booing them for doing so during last night’s friendly. 

England beat Romania at Middlesborough’s Riverside Stadium last night in preparation for the upcoming Euros, where twenty-three year old Rashford scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot.

However, England’s victory was tarnished from the get-go when a number of fans were heard booing as the players took the knee in a sign of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement before the match.

Following the match, Rashford, who was captaining England for the first time, spoke out and stressed that, despite the backlash, he and the other players will continue taking the knee throughout the Euros.

He told ITV News after the match: “For us, we believe it’s the right thing to do, so we’re going to continue to do that.”

This comes just over a week after he opened up about the ‘mountain’ of racist abuse he received from fans following Man United’s Europa League loss to Villarreal.

Taking to Twitter, he wrote: “At least 70 racial slurs on my social accounts counted so far. For those working to make me feel any worse than I already do, good luck trying.”

In a subsequent tweet, he revealed one of his abusers appeared to be a teacher.

The footballer said: “I’m more outraged that one of the abusers that left a mountain of monkey emojis in my DM is a maths teacher with an open profile. He teaches children!! And knows that he can freely racially abuse without consequence…”

The striker, who received criticism for his overall performance in the match, also shared a reply from one user who said of the racist abuse: “You deserve it man you are awful” – replying with a thumbs-up emoji.

Rashford received nation-wide praise last year when he began campaigning to end child poverty and hunger – his work for the provision of free school meals in the UK during holidays and other support to low-income families prompted major changes in government policy.