In January, the International Olympic Committee released guidelines for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics that included a ban on "gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling."
The Tokyo Games were postponed to summer 2021 in late March because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but the IOC confirmed to the Telegraph's Ben Bloom Tuesday "the guidelines are still in place" against protests.
The United States men's and women's national teams called for U.S. Soccer to reconsider its ban on kneeling during the anthem Monday:
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem before games in 2016, and the movement spread across the NFL and sports landscape.