Footballer Lyle Taylor refuses to take a knee, says BLM is a Marxist organization

Nottingham Forest footballer Lyle Taylor announced he will not be taking a knee in solidarity with Black Lives Matter during matches, claiming he doesn’t agree with the Marxist organization's views.

"Enough is enough," said Lyle Taylor to LBC’s Nick Ferrari when asked why he won’t be kneeling alongside his teammates.

"I took the decision because I felt that enough was enough…not enough people have looked into the organization that has brought all of this to the fore," said Taylor.

"I said before, that I agree with the message that black lives do matter and something needs to be done about that... the societal injustice needs to stop."

Although the Nottingham Forest footballer agrees that something needs to be done about the societal injustices facing the black community, he does not believe the Marxist BLM group is the answer, further blasting the organization.

"But by the same token we are hanging our hat on, a Marxist group who are... looking to defund the police, they’re looking to use societal unrest and racial unrest to push their own political agenda and that’s not what black people are, we’re not a token gesture or a thing to hang your movement on just because it’s what’s powerful and it’s what’s going on at the moment," said Taylor to LBC.

Lyle Taylor is not the first Premier League Footballer to take a stand against taking a knee, Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha also said he would not take the knee, insisting the protest is no longer sufficient.

According to Taylor, footballers who take a stand instead of taking a knee get bullied on social media for being 'racist,' insinuating that he has been 'branded racist' and 'racially abused' by black people for refusing to take a knee in the past, LBC reported.

In the past few weeks, footballers across the Premier League have been at the front of a social media firestorm for taking a stand against Black Lives Matter. Wilfried Zaha, a footballer with Crystal Palace, was recently at the front of the fan abuse on social media after saying that taking a knee before matches is "degrading."

"Unless action is going to happen, don't speak to me about it," said Zaha when asked about the subject of racism.

"It's becoming something that we just do now and that's not enough for me. I'm not going to take the knee, I'm not going to wear Black Lives Matter on the back of my shirt because it feels like it's a target," the Crystal Palace footballer said.

"We're isolating ourselves, we're trying to say that we're equal but we're isolating ourselves with these things that aren't even working anyway, so that's my stand on it. I feel like we should stand tall."