TYRONE MINGS insists the positive reaction to England's anti-racism gesture shouldn't be overshadowed by the actions of a minority of supporters as he addressed the 'gesture politics' claims of Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Gareth Southgate and his players knelt ahead of the Three Lions' opening Euro 2020 victory over Croatia on Sunday as cheers and applause around Wembley drowned out the booing from a section of the crowd that continue to oppose the Black Lives Matter movement.
Southgate, the Football Association and Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for fans not to negatively react to the taking of the knee following vociferous jeering during the tournament warm-up matches and Patel would later insists she doesn't "support people participating in that type of gesture politics".
"Understandably, when you have such strong beliefs there will be opposition to that," Mings said ahead of England's second Group D fixture at home to Scotland on Friday evening. "So we spoke about it a lot, we spoke about trying to educate or trying to inform the minority who refuse to acknowledge why we're taking the knee and want to do it.
"But, at the same time, in Wembley there was a hugely positive reaction to us taking the knee as well and I don't think that should be overshadowed by the minority that refuse to accept what the reasons are, or don't agree with them.
"To the Home Secretary, I don't really have a direct message. I mean we spoke, actually she invited me onto a Zoom call once, where she seemed so interested and engrossed in the players' point of view and what we could do more to tackle these sort of issues.
"But at the same time, everybody's entitled to their own opinion and the Home Secretary is one of many, many people that oppose us taking the knee or refuse to defend it.
"So, we have our own set of beliefs and what we think we can do to help and there will be players that can be influential and can stand up for what we believe in."
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