World Cup: England, Wales, and others refuse to wear the One Love armband

England, Wales, and other European teams that had previously insisted on their captains wearing a ‘One Love’ armband during their 2022 World Cup matches have opted out after  It FIFA maintained its opposition.

The various football associations met with FIFA this morning to discuss the sanctions that could be imposed if they go ahead with it, but as of now, they have dropped the idea entirely.

The FAs of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland issued a joint statement expressing dissatisfaction with FIFA’s decision, which they believe is unprecedented.

The statement 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 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. We were prepared to pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations and had a strong commitment to wearing the armband.However, we 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. Our players and coaches are disappointed – they are strong supporters of inclusion and will show support in other ways.”

England will be the first team among those clamoring for the armband to begin their World Cup campaign, and it will be interesting to see how it goes, given that they would have been ‘guinea pigs’ for FIFA’s sanctions if they had gone ahead with it.

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