Graham Alexander has revealed Motherwell had already planned on not taking the knee against Kilmarnock before Rangers' Glen Kamara suffered alleged racist abuse against Slavia Prague.
The Steelmen opted to forgo the regular pre-match show of support against racism and instead stood in protest to highlight what they believe has become an "empty gesture."
Before their 4-1 defeat to Kilmarnock, Motherwell released a statement explaining why they would no longer take the knee as they called for action against racist abuse in football.
And Alexander revealed post-match that the club had already planned to make their point a few days ago.
But when Kamara was allegedly racially abused by Slavia's Ondrej Kudela in Thursday night's clash, Motherwell players were absolutely certain that they would make their protest this weekend.
Alexander said: "It was actually something that was spoken about at the start of the week.
"When I spoke to the players yesterday they didn't want to do it [take the knee] and I just felt out of unity we should all do the same thing to have the same message.
"There's a lot of issues around it but the players felt this was the best way for us and them to acknowledge the issues and the reaction to them."
Asked if the Kamara incident had brought things to a head, Alexander added: "It was discussed earlier in the week, but when we spoke to the players on Friday they felt they wanted to do it.
"As a club should do, we backed our players, we supported our players in the message.
"It's a small gesture in the grand scheme of things but hopefully enough people grasp it."
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