opinion
Excitement about “One Love” banner
Fifa flexes its muscles for colorful bandages – and thus exposes itself to ridicule
The corpus delicti on Manuel Neuer’s arm: This colorful little heart seems to scare FIFA and Qatar
© Christian Charisius / DPA
Fifa is putting pressure behind the scenes to ensure that the captains of numerous nations, including Germany, will not wear a colorful armband at the World Cup in Qatar. What a farce!
It was already a bad compromise, and now there shouldn’t even be one. The football associations of England, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Wales have caved in to Fifa and have asked their captains not to wear the “One Love” armband at the World Cup in Qatar.
In a joint statement, the associations criticize Fifa’s pressure as “unprecedented”. Accordingly, the world association has made it clear that wearing the bandage will have sporting consequences. The DFB and the other countries were willing to pay fines, the statement said. However, players cannot be asked to accept yellow cards or even dismissals for wearing a certain captain’s armband.
This is understandable from the point of view of the national associations. Who is helped if Harry Kane, Manuel Neuer and Co. are banned because they wear a colorful armband? Fifa, which was apparently prepared to escalate the dispute that has been publicly held for days, is making itself ridiculous. Threatening sporting consequences for a harmless captain’s armband. Incomprehensible!
“One Love” bandage was already a compromise
The “One Love” bandage was already a rotten compromise, a bucking of the fact that the colors of the rainbow are undesirable in the homophobic emirate. A replacement sanitary napkin was promptly designed, officially, to add freedom of expression, women’s rights and workers’ rights to the equation. Obviously, the associations wanted to accommodate Fifa and especially Qatar. It shouldn’t be a protest, just a little protest. But not even that will exist now. Because Fifa is in all seriousness about taking action against a colorful heart on the armband of a (!) player on the pitch.
If she had just let the players wear the heart, soon no one would have talked about it anymore. It was a weak gesture anyway, and it wouldn’t have changed the situation in Qatar anyway. But now Fifa is turning a colorful mosquito into a giant elephant.
The topic has been in the public eye for days. Fifa should actually know what triggers it. It seems that the officials around the unrealistic Gianni Infantino simply don’t care. The only thing that matters are the sensitivities of the backward, intolerant host country Qatar. And in order not to annoy the sheikhs, the world association is obviously no longer above anything.