England may have produced a stand-out performance in their 6-2 thumping of Iran this morning, but the team missed a massive opportunity to send out a bigger statement at the FIFA World Cup.
By reneging on a plan to wear the OneLove armbands, England’s Football Association has been forced into a humiliating climbdown.
They had, along with the other European Teams, planned to wear the captain’s armbands as a show of support for the LGBTTQIA+ community – a decision made in October.
Homosexuality is illegal in host nation Qatar.
This was going to be a defiant gesture of solidarity with those criminalised, persecuted, and marginalised.
But after FIFA put the heat on, England, Wales, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and Belgium agreed to wear bland ‘No Discrimination’ armbands.
The threat of a "sporting sanction", namely a yellow card for the captain wearing the rainbow armband [not correct tournament attire], seems to have done the trick.
Some saw the armband as a token gesture, but the speculation about whether FIFA would crack down on it raised the stakes.
It suddenly took on something more symbolic.
What a sight it would have been – and imagine the global message it would have sent – had the referee brandished a yellow card to captains Harry Kane or Virgil van Dijk before kick-off.
The team could have passed the armband around the team during the group stages to avoid the possibilities of players picking up suspensions.
And it would have been an even stronger stance, flying in the face of FIFA’s ridiculous directive.
Perhaps the players are in an impossible situation, and they shouldn’t be made to pay for governing bodies’ fights.
But that’s what would have made the protest more powerful.
“I feel gay,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in his bizarre speech the other day.
Well, right now lots of football fans feel disappointed, angry, and unwelcome.
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