In the World Cup, captains’ armbands were not allowed to have a rainbow pattern.
Football One of the most controversial issues of the World Cup was the decision of the International Football Federation (FIFA) to ban team captains from wearing rainbow ribbons with the text One Love.
Fifa justified its decision by saying that different countries have different cultures and Fifa has to take all of these into account.
Now a reporter for the New York Times Tariq Panja claims the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation The SVT in the interview, that behind FIFA’s decision is pressure from Qatar and its royal family.
“Fifa experienced pressure from the Qatari state and the royal family. After all, it was about them [Qatarin] from the World Cup and they had full control over Fifa during the tournament,” Panja tells SVT.
Panja has followed and written about Fifa for the New York Times for 15 years. According to him, Fifa had not reacted in any way to rainbow ribbons before, but just two days before the World Cup, Fifa started threatening players with rainbow ribbons with a ban.
“It became a big controversy and Fifa handled it badly.”
According to Panja, another thing came unexpectedly. There was supposed to be beer sales in connection with the stadiums, but the ban came from Qatar just a week before the tournament. According to Panja, in this case too, it was a decision of the autocratic monarchy.
“If the country’s top management says ‘no beer’, so be it.”
Read more: Gianni Infantino came up with a new reason for banning rainbow ribbons: the joy would have been taken away from the spectators