England faced “extreme blackmail” from FIFA before deciding to scrap plans for captain Harry Kane to wear a One Love armband at the World Cup, a senior official from Germany’s football federation has claimed.
Steffen Simon, the DFB head of media, said that the decision to not display the armband was “very painful” but the European teams “are not impostors” who have “betrayed” their values and support for discriminated communities.
Wales' Gareth Bale was also meant to wear the symbol along with the skippers of Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Switzerland and Germany in a gesture of solidarity with the LGBT community. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar with gay men and women facing seven-year jail sentences.
But the plan was scrapped early on Monday following pressure from the governing body. FIFA had said that, as clearly set out rules, any player wearing the armband would receive a yellow card.
In an interview with radio station Deutschlandfunk, Simon said that England, who were the first of the European nations to play in a tournament overshadowed by human rights issues, had been “threatened with massive sporting sanctions” by FIFA and that forced them to ditch the armband.
The Football Association have not commented on Simon’s claims. In a statement yesterday they said that they were “disappointed” but could not “put their players in a position where they would receive sporting sanctions.”
Simon said: “The tournament director went to the English team and talked about multiple rule violations and threatened with massive sporting sanctions without specifying what these would be.
“We lost the armband and it is very painful but we are the same people as before with the same values. We are not impostors who claim they have values and then betray them.”
“We were in an extreme situation, in an extreme blackmail and we thought we had to take that decision without wanting to do so.”
Germany, the 2014 winners, begin their campaign against Japan on Wednesday afternoon.
The FA’s statement, released before Gareth Southgate’s team defeated Iran 6-2, read: “FIFA has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play.
“As national federations, we can’t put our players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions including bookings, so we have asked the captains not to attempt to wear the armbands in FIFA World Cup games.
“We were prepared to pay fines that would normally apply to breaches of kit regulations and had a strong commitment to wearing the armband. However, we cannot put our players in the situation where they might be booked or even forced to leave the field of play.
“We are very frustrated by the FIFA decision which we believe is unprecedented – we wrote to FIFA in September informing them of our wish to wear the One Love armband to actively support inclusion in football, and had no response.
“Our players and coaches are disappointed – they are strong supporters of inclusion and will show support in other ways.”
