England, Other Teams Drop Plans to Wear Antidiscrimination Armbands at Qatar World Cup

The Wall Street Journal:

Hours before their opening games of the 2022 World Cup, England and Wales abandoned plans to wear rainbow armbands after FIFA threatened to sanction players for breaking tournament rules.

In one of the early flashpoints of the tournament, FIFA on Sunday notified seven European teams that players would be subject to sporting sanctions, including automatic yellow cards, for wearing the “One Love” armbands, which were designed to send a message against discrimination. The target was widely understood to be anti-homosexuality laws in Qatar.

Like I wrote over the weekend, choosing to host the World Cup in a repressive right-wing religious dictatorship is going just great.

★ Monday, 21 November 2022