The directives of FIFA on the issue of Captain’s armband has eventually prevailed on the European countries who had earlier plan to defy the world football governing body’s rejection to their bid to wear a ‘rainbow armband’.
The rainbow armband, also known as OneLove armband is deemed as a strong message of solidarity of support against discrimination of Qatar’s strict rules especially on homosexuality.
All the European teams Captain planned to wear the OneLove armband – which includes a “heart containing colours representative of all backgrounds” even when FIFA threatened to sanction whoever put on the armband.
FIFA had made it clear that it wouldn’t accept any other armband from team’s Captain except for the one designed principally for the tournament
The Fifa rules state: “For Fifa Final Competitions, the captain of each team must wear the captain’s armband provided by Fifa.”
FIFA announced its own campaign armbands on Saturday with slogans such as “Football Unites the World”, and “Share the meal” which are all UN-backed initiatives launched with a short video including messages from superstars Lionel Messi and Neymar.
Meanwhile, it was as turn of event to see the Captains of England, Netherlands and Wales wearing the designed armband of the tournament in their respective games on Monday.
The England National team would eventually had a subtle approach to their intent when they took a knee before their game against Iran on Monday.
Taking a knee which also represent a message of ‘equality’ in a broader sense was believed to be synonymous to the intents of the rainbow armband.