England, Wales, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and, Netherland teams have refused to allow their captains wear the ‘OneLove’ anti-discrimination armband at their opening games in Qatar 2022.
The teams had been willing to pay fines for their captains to wear the armbands but changed their minds when they were informed of sanctions against captains who decide to wear them.
The nations released a joint statement that reads, “ FIFA has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play.
“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.
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“We were prepared to pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations and had a strong commitment to wearing the armband. however, we cannot put our players in the situation where they might be booked or even forced to leave the field of play.
“We are very frustrated by the FIFA decision which we believe is unprecedented –we wrote to FIFA in September informing them of our wish to wear the ‘OneLove’ armband to actively support inclusion in football, and had no response. Our players and coaches are disappointed – they are strong supporters of inclusion and will show support in other ways.”
FIFA has earlier revealed that it would have seven different armbands for each round of the competition, each of these armbands is said to carry different social messaging slogans.
Following the decisions of the teams to not wear the ‘OneLove’ armband, FIFA promised to make the ‘No Discrimination’ armband available throughout the tournament.
