'It's not our problem': Czech online discourse on kneeling in football and Black Lives Matter

This article analyses public comments posted under Czech newspapers/media Facebook posts between March and August 2021 which engage with the matter of kneeling and support of Black Lives Matter in football. Findings suggest that there is a certain ignorance of the global politics of race which lead to complex discourses of a) 'rejection', b) 'reverse-racism', and c) 'colour-blind' ideologies. In these three prevalent narratives we also expose racialised and racist discourses in relation to its local context and socio-historical trajectory. Employing the theoretical concepts of 'colonial exceptionalism' and 'Eastern-Europeanism', the article captures some of the local roots of this racism in Czechia. We conclude that football enthusiast in Czech society tend to flag their own victimized positioning as 'other' Europeans who have also seen oppression rather than engaging with their whiteness and Europeanness as a global privilege.