No band with the writing “One Love”. Fifa says no and the national teams whose captains would have liked to wear it won’t put it on with all due respect to demonstrations in favor of human rights Lgbtqi+ whose defense that band wants to symbolize. The International Football Federation has established that the only armbands that can be used a Qatar 2022 are those approved by Fifa, whoever chooses others risks being warned. Faced with the yellow card, the national federations, which also would have agreed to pay an economic penalty, have raised their hands: starting with a player who is already warned means no longer starting on an equal footing on the pitch.
From England to Holland, the seven European national teams who had announced that their captains would use the rainbow heart armband withdrew in the face of the Fifa press release, not without resentment. The International Federation says the campaign No Discrimination can also be carried forward at the World Cup and that all 32 captains have the opportunity to use the approved armbands.
The «One Love» headband has a heart design and a rainbow in the background. In the center of the heart is the white number 1 and the words “one” and “love” on the sides. It was the Dutch federation that introduced it in 2020. They are not exactly the traditional colors of the Lgbtqi+ campaigns, a deliberate choice precisely to avoid controversy in Qatar, but the goal is clear. The bracket was shared by nine European teams in total: the Netherlands, Germany, England, Belgium, Denmark, France, Wales, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway. Portugal and Spain did not join, Italy was not involved. For the Nations League, the armband has been approved by UEFA.
We are in favor of LGBT rights and we support the One Love campaign. But the captains by regulation must wear the armband provided by Fifa: the decision is to bring forward the No Discrimination campaign scheduled for the quarter-finals to the first round».
For those who had chosen the rainbow campaign it is not quite the same thing. They say the federations of England, Wales, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland: «We are deeply frustrated by FIFA’s decision, which we believe is unprecedented. We informed FIFA in September of our desire to use the armband to support inclusion in football. We got no response. Our players and our coaches are disappointed: we were ready to pay the fines, but Fifa warned very clearly of the risk of sporting sanctions, to which we cannot expose our captains».
In the authorized ranges there are messages such as: «Football unites» and «Let’s save the planet». Shared and shareable messages such as the campaign against world hunger, but the issues that are contested in Qatar are avoided, starting with those of homosexuals. Only ten days ago an ambassador of the World Cup said that “gays are mentally ill”.
The Dutch federation said the sanction threatened by FIFA “goes against the spirit of our sport which unites millions of people”. The German Leon Goretzka said: «It is the image of a humanity of another millennium, very oppressive. Totally unacceptable.” After this decision, the declaration of the Fifa president seems completely cosmetic Gianni Infantino two days ago: “Today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arab, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled, today I feel like a migrant worker”.
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Source: Vanity Fair
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