Spurs’ Alderweireld ‘honoured’ as petition calls for his bust to replace ex-king’s statue in Black Lives Matter protest – The Sun

TOBY ALDERWEIRELD is "honoured" by a petition calling for a statue of him to replace a former Belgium king's – as the Black Lives Matter protests spread across Europe.

So far more than 900 people in the Tottenham defender's home town of Ekeren have backed demands to build a figure of the Belgium star to oust King Leopold II's statue.

Anti-racism campaigners want Belgium to confront its colonial past, including targeting images of infamous Leopold II as he oversaw atrocities in the Congo from 1885-1908.

Alderweireld, 31, at first thought the plan to put up his bust was a prank.

The 98-cap ace told the Guardian: “I was laughing. I thought it was some kind of joke, that people are actually signing the petition.

“I have to say I’m a little bit honoured as well.

It’s a small town in Belgium and until I was 15 I spent my youth there.

I will not sign my own petition. Of the people who have, I think 80 per cent are my friends. I don’t think I will ever deserve a statue.

"I went to school there and I still go back. If they really wanted to I would never say no because I would be honoured, but I will not sign my own petition.

"Of all the people who have, I think about 80 per cent are my friends.

“I would never say: ‘This is a good time to put up a statue of me,’ because I don’t think I will ever deserve a statue."

Protests against racism have broadened far and wife from the USA, where George Floyd died at the hands of police.

And Belgian protesters have taken away or scrawled graffiti on likenesses of Leopold II, who was king from 1885 to 1909.

More notoriously, he has been blamed for the deaths of around 10–15 million Africans when he was the Sovereign of the Congo Free State during the same period.

That reign reportedly initiated the term "crime against humanity" – now commonly used for the worst offences.

Many campaigners want Leopold's town centre statue dumped and replaced by a figure of arguably the area's greatest ever football hero.

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