England’s football players have confirmed they will take the knee in Hungary, saying they are ready to defy what is likely to be a 'chorus of jeers' at the Puskás Aréna for performing this anti-racism gesture.

Hungarian fans loudly jeered Republic of Ireland players for taking the knee at a Euro 2020 warm-up game in Budapest, and they displayed anti-kneeling banners before and during Euro tournament matches.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán is on record as saying ‘taking the knee is alien to Hungarian culture’.

The head of the organisation which operates FIFA’s 'Anti-Discrimination Monitoring System' has called for England’s players to walk off if the three-step protocol to prevent such abuse in international football was not strictly followed, reports The Telegraph.

The Hungarian team were sanctioned by UEFA due to racist and homophobic abuse by fans during Euro 2020, and accordingly have to play their next three UEFA matches without any fans. 

Also the Hungarian Football Federation was fined Euro 100,000 for "the discriminatory behaviour of its supporters" at Euro 2020.

However that punishment does not extend to FIFA matches, so there is expected to be a full crowd of 60,000 people when Hungary and England take to the field today.

Hungarian team coach Marco Rossi said yesterday that he was ‘on the side’ of England players should they receive any racist abuse from home fans.
 
"I hope that we will not face this kind of situations tomorrow," said Italian expat Rossi during a press conference at the Hungarian team's base in Telki near Budapest. 

"But in case it happens we are absolutely on their side, on the side of the English players of course," Rossi added.

Rossi previously urged Hungarian fans not to make racist or homophobic chants, and Hungary star player Andras Schafer repeated that call before the sell-out tie today.

"Our fans are one of our biggest weapons and as it's a FIFA competition we start with a clean slate, so we hope it stays like that," he is reported to have said.

England's players have faced racist abuse during past games, and also received online racist abuse from accounts based in England after their loss in the Euro 2020 final against Italy.

In England’s game against Bulgaria two years ago the match was halted twice due to racist abuse directed at English players.

"We know the experience we had before, but we're going to Hungary preparing for a game against a crowd that will get behind their team and we're looking forward to the challenge of the match," says Gareth Southgate, the manager of England. 

“We are not really focused on other countries, we are focused on ourselves and making sure we get our own things correct,” added Southgate ahead of the match against Hungary.

When asked whether he has prepared the England team for any potential abuse they might face in Budapest, he simply said yes.

Southgate refused to be drawn further on whether his team would walk off if subjected to racist abuse from any Hungarian supporters.

As fans know, the Hungarian players performed well in the 'Group of Death' at Euro 2020 against Portugal, Germany and France.

Hungary nearly upset the odds to progress to the knock-out stages of that tournament, in which England made it to /final but lost on penalties to Italy.

Turkey’s Cüney Çakır, who was the lead official in the 2015 Champions League final, will referee the match, his assistants will be Bahattin Duran and Tarik Ongun, with Abdulkadir Bitigen as the VAR referee.

The match today starts at 20:45 CET, locally the match is being broadcast live by M4 Sport.

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MTI Photo: Zoltán Balogh