The “One Love” armband of the European captains around Manuel Neuer led to a big rift with the world governing body FIFA on the second day of the World Cup.
According to information from the German Press Agency, FIFA put a lot of pressure on the UEFA participants involved in the campaign for human rights and diversity – and threatened sporting sanctions. The German Football Association and other associations are now doing without the symbolic piece of fabric in Qatar.
“We are experiencing an unprecedented event in World Cup history. We will not carry out the confrontation brought about by FIFA on the back of Manuel Neuer,” said DFB President Bernd Neuendorf on Monday. The association also announced that fines would have been accepted. “However, we cannot put our players in a situation where they are cautioned or even forced to leave the field.” The DFB was “very frustrated with the FIFA decision”.
Sharp criticism
The decision was preceded by intensive consultations between the UEFA working group and FIFA. Sporting sanctions such as a yellow card are not clearly covered by the FIFA Statutes. The fan organization “Football Supporters Europe” sharply criticized the process. “Today we feel contempt for an organization that has proven its true values by showing players yellow cards and tolerance the red card,” tweeted FSE.
The first captain to openly flout FIFA regulations during the finals would have been England’s Harry Kane against Iran. “We had been willing to pay penalties, which would normally be the case for dress code violations. However, we couldn’t put our players in a situation where they could get a yellow card or even be forced to leave the field “said the joint statement distributed by the English FA.
FIFA justified the ban with the World Cup regulations recognized by all participants. In a statement on Monday, the association explicitly emphasized Article 13.8.1 of the Equipment Rules: “For FIFA Final competitions, the captain of each team must wear an armband provided by FIFA.” FIFA supports campaigns like “One Love”, but this must be done within the framework of the rules known to all.
Associations change their minds
According to “dpa” information, the rule paragraph for (banned) political messages is also in focus. “In the event of a breach of this provision, the player and/or team will be sanctioned by the competition organiser, the national football association or FIFA,” read the international rules. The extent to which the strictly Muslim World Cup host Kater was involved in the decision remained open.
DFB President Bernd Neuendorf had previously spoken of differences of opinion with FIFA, but also said: “We said we would stick to the fact that we would come up with the armband. (…) We have repeatedly pointed this out to FIFA long beforehand , that we want to play with this armband, there was no reaction from FIFA.” After deliberations on Monday, the associations changed their minds.
The campaign was a joint effort announced in September by teams from Germany, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Wales, France, Denmark as well as Norway and Sweden, both of which have not qualified for the World Cup. The associations involved had stated several times that they had received no response from FIFA about their plan. France’s captain Hugo Lloris announced early on that he would not wear the bandage.
FIFA only presented its own new captain’s armbands on Friday – two days before the opening game. “The participating teams will have the opportunity to send messages during the games via the team captains’ armbands,” said the world association. Teams can now wear a “No Discrimination” armband throughout the tournament, instead of only during the quarter-finals as previously planned. According to the announcement, FIFA devised the messages together with three United Nations organizations.