PRESIDENT Donald Trump yesterday unleashed a series of Twitter tackles against the NFL, American football’s elite league, after a series of weekend protests continued into Monday.
Players have been increasingly “taking the knee” in protest following remarks made by the president last week when he criticised the trend.
Nonetheless, Trump continued his onslaught against the NFL on the social networking site, saying: “Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected.”
He also said booing at the Dallas game on Monday night when the team dropped to its knees was the “loudest I have ever heard”.
Following a weekend of kneeling and protesting across the NFL, the Cowboys and their owner decided to put on their own version of unity on Monday night by kneeling on the field before rising as a group ahead of the playing of the national anthem.
Trump noted in his tweets that the team stood for the anthem: “Big progress being made – we all love our country.”
Monday’s game saw the Cowboys and their owner displaying their own version of unity by kneeling on the field before rising as a group ahead of the national anthem after a weekend of protests at other fixtures.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been a staunch supporter of Trump, so the speculation was that he would not allow his players to kneel during the national anthem.
“I hope that I’m clear and I hope that our team is clear: we want to respect the flag. Make no mistake about that,” Jones said.
“Nothing that we’ve done, nothing that we did tonight says anything other than that.
“We also want to as a complete team, as players and an organisation, be able to, whenever we can, demonstrate that unity is important and equality is important.
“That’s what I’m so proud of these guys for, they did both and did it in a way when people really stop and think about it, makes a lot of sense,” he added.
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