PLAYERS have taken a knee, raised a fist, unfurled slogans and demanded tougher action only to find that football — their working environment — remains infected with racism.

The tipping point might just have come, with elite players in Paris taking the extraordinary step of refusing to continue playing.

At the end of a year of striking gestures against racial injustice and discrimination, the Champions League produced one of football’s most powerful shows of solidarity against racism on Tuesday when players from Paris Saint-Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir left the field and didn’t return.