DOHA.– The seven European teams that had planned to wear a One Love colored bracelet in favor of inclusion and against discrimination gave up on Monday to do so in the face of the threat of “sports sanctions”, during the World Cup in Qatar, they announced to a few hours of the England-Iran match.
“FIFA has been very clear, it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field. As national federations, we cannot ask our players to risk sporting sanctions, including yellow cards,” these seven federations wrote.
England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland have therefore foregone their respective captains receiving a yellow card for this inclusive bracelet, feeling “frustrated” by FIFA’s inflexibility.
“You don’t want the captain to start the game with a yellow card. That is why, with a lot of pain, as a UEFA working group (…) and as a team, we have had to decide to abandon our plan,” the Dutch FA (KNVB) said in a statement.
The KNVB said FIFA had made it clear just hours before the start of its opening match against Senegal on Monday that captain Virgil van Dijk would receive a yellow card if he took the field with the armband as scheduled.
“This goes completely against the spirit of our sport, which unites millions of people,” the KNVB said in a statement. “Together with other countries involved, we will take a critical look at our relationship with FIFA.”
Initially a member of the One Love initiative, France had announced in the words of its captain Hugo Lloris that it would not wear the armband.
“We were ready to assume applicable fines in case of non-respect of the kit rules and we were very committed to that armband. But we cannot put our players in a situation where they can be booked, and even have to leave the field “(in case of a second yellow card), justify the federations.
The kit regulations provide for captains to wear “the armbands provided by FIFA” during the final tournaments. Otherwise, the referee can ask the player to leave the field to “correct his attire”, and in case of non-compliance with this instruction, the player can be cautioned, under the referee’s opinion.
masked criticism
As the Danish coach, Kasper Hjulmand, acknowledged on Monday, “going to the field and being sanctioned with a yellow card is not possible,” he said. “We can’t ask the players to assume that,” he continued.
Since its appointment to host the event in 2010, Qatar has been the target of strong criticism, which has intensified even more with the proximity of the tournament, especially in terms of human rights, in particular LGBT people and migrant workers, including , those who worked on the construction of the World Cup.
To demonstrate their commitment to these causes, several European federations announced the One Love initiative in September.
For a long time in silence, FIFA, which considered it a masked criticism of the host country, reacted on Saturday by offering its own captain’s armbands, with much more consensual messages, such as “Save the planet”, “Education for all” or “No to discrimination”.
This Monday, the governing body of world football announced that its official bracelets with the message “No to discrimination” would be usable by the captains from now on, when they were scheduled to use them, initially, from the quarterfinals.