NFL owners will meet next week to consider changes to a game manual that says players “should” stand during the national anthem, a guideline the league has left to the discretion of players who kneeled in large numbers after President Donald Trump called for protesting players to be fired.

Commissioner Roger Goodell told club executives on Tuesday in a memo seen by the Star that the anthem issue is dividing the league from its fans. He said the NFL needs “to move past this controversy.”

NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said the guidance will be “front and centre on the agenda” when owners meet in New York next Tuesday and Wednesday.

The movement started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick last season over his view of police mistreatment of black males had mostly subsided when Trump told a rally in Alabama last month that owners should get rid of players who kneel during the anthem.

In his memo, Goodell reiterated the league’s belief that everyone should stand for the anthem and outlined plans to highlight efforts of players trying to bring attention to the social issues behind the game-day protests. Goodell said those plans would be presented to owners next week.

The game manual says that during the anthem “players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand and refrain from talking.” It is the NFL’s only known guidance on the subject.

The manual also says anyone not on the field by the start of the anthem can be fined or suspended. Lockhart said the league so far has chosen not to discipline any players. He sidestepped a question of whether “should” would be changed to “must” next week.

The anthem issue flared again Sunday when Vice-President Mike Pence left Indianapolis’s home game against San Francisco after about a dozen 49ers players knelt during the anthem.

A few hours later, Dallas Cowboys general manager Jerry Jones became the first owner to declare publicly that he would bench any players for what he saw as disrespect of the United States flag. Jones’s comments drew a swift response from National Football League Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, who said Jones was contradicting assurances from Goodell that players could express themselves without reprisals.