Bournemouth star Josh King has revealed to talkSPORT that he’s experienced racism in both England and his homeland Norway.
The words ‘Black Lives Matter’ are replacing players’ names on the back of their shirts for the first 12 matches of the Premier League restart.
Worldwide protests have been taking place since George Floyd, an African American man, died while a white police officer knelt on his neck in Minneapolis last month.
And King insists racism is not only rife in America after claiming to have once been followed in a Selfridges store by a security guard due to the colour of his skin.
He told talkSPORT: “If I took my boys to a shopping mall, the security guards would follow us. For me, that gets me angry because we haven’t done anything wrong.
“When it comes to violence or illegal drugs, my friends in my circle have never ever done anything.
“For me, to go in a shop and take my friends to a Selfridges store in Norway, to be followed by a security guard, it gets to me.
“I feel like I’ve worked hard in my life to reach where I am, to earn money, to be able to provide for my family and help my friends out.
“But just because I’ve got a darker pigment in my skin than you and because there’s more than three black people, you’re following us around waiting for us to steal something.”
King, who has won 46 caps for Norway, recalled the one time he was subjected to vile racial abuse while playing for Blackburn.
He added: “I was playing against Blackpool and I don’t know the player’s name, but he called me the N-word after a tackle incident.
“I asked him, ‘what did you say?’ And he said it again. I was just 20 years old. Charlie Adam asked me a question, I said what the player said to me, and respect to Charlie Adam, he said, ‘I’m going to talk to him’.
“That was in the first-half. We came out in the second-half and the player said, ‘I apologise, I shouldn’t have said that’. That’s because of Charlie Adam.
“But he shouldn’t have said it in the first place if you ask me.”
King played a crucial role behind Bournemouth’s powerful message backing the Black Lives Matter movement.
Last week, the Cherries released a video which showed their players condemning racism.
“I felt like someone needed to do something and us as a club. As soon as the ball started rolling, everyone got involved and we made a nice video,” King explained.
“I understand that video will not get us viral or spoken about as if Liverpool or Man United did the video, but at least we gave the message out to our followers and did what we think is right.
“Whoever that reaches, if it reaches one person to understand this is not right and we can be together and it’s not black against white, it’s black and white against racism, that’s what it is.”
talkSPORT is your home for live football when the Premier League resumes on 17 June with an unprecedented line-up of fixtures, including four back-to-back matches on Saturdays
