Prince William was delighted to see the return of professional football in the UK on Wednesday night (17.06.20).

Prince William

Prince William

The 37-year-old royal is a big fan of Premier League heavyweights Aston Villa, and he was pleased to see his team's match against Sheffield United was the first game back in the English top flight following a three-month break due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A tweet on the The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's official Twitter page read: "So good to have football back, we have all missed it! Thank you to everyone involved for your hard work in making it happen. W"

The account also retweeted a message from the Premier League, which read: "There is #NoRoomForRacism, anywhere"

This comes after the Villa and Sheffield United players knelt down as the game kicked off on Wednesday to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

All Premier League players had "Black Lives Matter" emblazoned across the backs of their shirts, where their surnames usually are, and they wore heart-shaped NHS badges on the front of their kits to show solidarity for frontline workers during the pandemic.

The match finished in a 0-0 draw, and while William was delighted to have football back, he will no doubt have wanted relegation-threatened Villa to have picked up a victory to boost their survival hopes.

The game, played at Aston Villa's Villa Park stadium in Birmingham, took place behind closed doors due to the coronavirus lockdown.

William recently opened up about taking his eldest son, six-year-old Prince George, to his first football match in October when Villa thrashed Norwich City 5-1.

George jumped up and down in delight beside him, but William admitted he was wary about celebrating as they were sitting in the middle of the Norwich fans.

The duke - who also has daughter Charlotte, five, and Louis, two, with wife Duchess Catherine - said: "I wasn't celebrating, that was the problem, I was sitting with the home fans. George did my bit of celebrating for me."

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