Cardiff Wanderers footballer, Georgia Brown, says it’s ‘disappointing’ that players will not wear the One Love armband at the Qatar World Cup.
The England and Wales captains, Harry Kane and Gareth Bale, were due to wear rainbow armbands in solidarity with LGBTQ+ rights, but reversed their decision after FIFA threatened players with yellow cards.
Georgia Brown plays for Cardiff Wanderers and says players ‘should be setting the standards and they should be standing up for what’s right’.
‘When you look at the sanctions that the players would face, it’s a yellow card. That doesn’t stop players fouling, it doesn’t stop them being abusive to the referees, it doesn’t stop any bad play but just because it’s a political statement they won’t do it. I understand you can’t put the players at risk, but they’re risking themselves either way by going.’
A statement from seven European football associations, including England and Wales said they were prepared to pay fines but could not put players in a position to face sporting sanctions.
The FAW said in a tweet that they were ‘frustrated’ and disappointed’.
Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by a prison sentence of up to 3 years.
FIFA says it is allowing players to wear their official ‘No Discrimination’ armbands.
They released a statement on Monday saying that their ‘No Discrimination’ armband campaign had been brought forward from the planned quarter-finals stage in order that all 32 captains will have the opportunity to wear this armband’ during the competition.
‘This is in line with Article 13.8.1 of the FIFA Equipment Regulations, which state: “For FIFA Final Competitions, the captain of each Team must wear the captain’s armband provided by FIFA.”’