The armbands “One Love” will no longer be worn by the captains of seven European nations competing in the 2022 World Cup.
On Sunday, it was made known that players who wore the armbands, which were intended to support LGBTQ+ rights in Qatar, ran the possibility of getting sent off before games began.
Football bodies, including the FA, were willing to pay a fine, but it appears that the fear of punishing captains individually, like England’s Harry Kane, led them to abandon the plan at the last minute.
Per Sky News, a joint statement from the Football Associations of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland 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.”
The teams said they were prepared to “pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations” but “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 One Love armband to actively support inclusion in football, and had no response,” the statement added.