The captains of eight European teams qualified for the World Cup in Qatar will wear a rainbow bracelet on this occasion, designed to fight discrimination.
At one point he calls for a boycott of the next world Cup, a symbolically important initiative was announced yesterday, tending to show that the players involved in the event are not insensitive to their social problems. Indeed, a statement from the English Federation (FA) revealed that, as part of an anti-discrimination campaign entitled “OneLove”, the captains of eight European teams qualified for the World Cup (Germany, England, Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Wales and Switzerland) will wear a rainbow armband in the next matches of the Nations League, but also during the competition in Qatar, a country where homosexuality is illegal.
“As captains, we face each other on the field, but together we fight against all forms of discrimination”said Harry Kane, the captain of the Three Lions in a press release, while Raphaël Varane, who will wear the armband this afternoon in the absence of Hugo Lloris, confided in a press conference: “For me it is an honor to defend certain values […]. It is a common message. It’s nice to have this unit. »
Different colors and war of influence
Still, this approach, as strong as it is in terms of image, raises some questions, in particular because the armband the captains will wear has colors that differ slightly from the LGBT flag, raising questions about the exact nature of the discrimination that ‘He denounces.
Furthermore, we do not know who the instigators of this mobilization are, since Varane mentioned “an initiative of different European federations”while the FA statement explains that the OneLove campaign originated “in the Netherlands”while the German federation affirms that it comes from a UEFA working group in charge of studying “Human rights and labor issues in Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup”.
If the last hypothesis is confirmed, this syntony of captains, although it is still commendable in view of the objectives it pursues, it also resembles a new episode in the war of influences between FIFA and UEFA.
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