Off the Pitch

Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford has stepped up his campaign for the government to fund free meals for struggling children through the summer school lockdown, support he himself had to rely on as a boy.

The 22-year-old soccer star has taken a prominent role during the pandemic to raise awareness and funds for those families who are "existing on a knife's edge" and struggling to feed their children.

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) announced he is drafting legislation to force U.S. Soccer players to stand for the national anthem or “face financial repercussions.”

Society could learn a valuable lesson from soccer in the ongoing struggle against racial discrimination, according to former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

The killing of unarmed black man George Floyd by a white policeman in Minneapolis last month has prompted a wave of protests across the world and focussed attention on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Soccer players have shown their support for the movement and Wenger believes the fact that so many black players have made the grade shows the sport does not suffer from racism.

A day after the U.S. Soccer announced that it had overturned its ban on protests during the national anthem, federation president Cindy Parlow Cone apologized to women's national team star Megan Rapinoe for the policy being instituted originally.

U.S. Soccer added the rule to its bylaws in 2017 after Rapinoe began kneeling for the anthem to protest racism and police abuses. Rapinoe was following the lead of then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began the same protests in 2016 and hasn't played in the NFL since that year.

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Dele Alli will miss the Premier League restart after being suspended for a match by the Football Association on Thursday, having been found guilty of misconduct after mocking the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Alli, 24, was charged with breaching FA Rule E3 (1) after posting a video on social media of himself at an airport wearing a mask and apparently mocking a man of Asian appearance.

Weston McKennie is not shying away from the spotlight, not backing down from what he believes and not afraid to speak out against the most powerful man in the world.

The USMNT and Schalke midfielder said U.S. President Donald Trump is racist in an interview published in the German magazine Sport Bild this week, adding that he doesn’t feel Trump is fit to be president.

BELGRADE — Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has offered a message of support to the players of a Serbian third-tier club who have gone on hunger strike over unpaid wages.

The strike involves around 25 players, according to Serbian media, from the club FC Borac, which was disbanded owing unpaid wages before its owners bought another local club and renamed it FC Borac 1926.

Serbian Matic, one of the country’s most popular internationals, rallied behind the striking players in a message on the Facebook page of global players' union FIFPRO.

Bundesliga players and clubs are letting the world know they stand with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The biggest soccer league currently in action amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Bundesliga has seen a number of statements in support of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, perhaps none more prominent than what happened before Borussia Dortmund hosted Hertha Berlin on Saturday. The teams took a knee in a dramatic show of solidarity on the 12th day of protests over the murder of Floyd.