Premier League and FA accused of ‘hypocrisy’ after failing to hold tributes to mosque attack victims

Last weekend’s Six Nations matches all held a minute’s silence before kick-off

(Getty)

The Premier League and FA have been accused of showing “hypocrisy” and “double standards” for not holding tributes to the 50 people killed in the New Zealand mosque attack.

This weekend’s Six Nations matches all held a minute’s silence before kick-off, however, games in the Premier League and FA Cup did not.

Yunus Lunat, a former FA race equality board chair, drew comparison to the Nice attacks in July 2016 when 86 people were killed after a lorry drove into a crowd on Bastille Day. After the tradegy, Wembley’s arch was lit in the Tricolour to show solidarity with the victims.

“The reason this happens is because there are a lack of role models and senior ethnic executives that can identify this sort of thing,” Lunat told BBC Sport.

“There is a lack of Muslims in leadership roles in sport, particularly football, despite those applying being competent enough for roles.

“The FA Cup is the FA’s competition. It shows a lack of leadership and it is a cop out.

“This was a missed opportunity to make a huge statement about what is happening around the world.

“This was a perfect opportunity for the chance to stand up and be counted. Fulham had a tribute but it could not be extended to what happened in New Zealand.”

The FA have said it was at clubs own discretion as to whether they held a tribute to the victims and they would be supported if they had chosen to do so, and have now announced that a tribute will be held before England’s Euro 2020 qualifier against Czech Republic on Friday.

In a statement, the FA said: “We will pay tribute to the victims of the tragedy in New Zealand at the England v Czech Republic match on Friday 22 March. We will remember everyone affected by the terrible events in Christchurch.”