The captains of England, Wales, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark have backed down on wearing ‘OneLove’ armbands at the World Cup following pressure from FIFA, the associations said in a joint statement on Monday.
Any player donning the rainbow armband, which was introduced to show support for the LGBT community, risks receiving a yellow card from FIFA.
Harry Kane, the captain of England, expressed on Sunday his desire to lead his team against Iran in the Group B opener on Monday.
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“FIFA has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play,” a joint statement said on Monday, hours before England’s match against Iran kicked off in Doha.
“As national federations, we can’t put our players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions including bookings, so we have asked the captains not to attempt to wear the armbands in FIFA World Cup games.”
The nations joint statement said they were “very frustrated” by the FIFA decision which comes days after president Gianni Infantino said “today I feel gay” during a long monologue aimed at media criticizing the decision to host the World Cup in a country where homosexuality remains illegal.
“We believe (the decision) is unprecedented — we wrote to FIFA in September informing them of our wish to wear the One Love armband to actively support inclusion in football, and had no response,” the statement said.
