On the day of the great controversy surrounding the ban on the “One Love” captain’s armband, the President of the Belgian Football Association announced that FIFA was also objecting to the World Cup participant’s jerseys. A lettering disturbs the association, it says: For commercial reasons.
For commercial reasons, the world association FIFA has banned the away jerseys of the Belgian national soccer team at the World Cup finals in Qatar. The word “Love” can be seen on the jersey collar. This is the name of the collection that FIFA main sponsor Adidas created together with ‘Tomorrowland’. However, the electronic music festival of the same name is not one of the supporters of the World Cup, so the lettering cannot be seen on the otherwise advertising-free World Cup jerseys.
“It’s sad, but FIFA doesn’t give us a choice. The rest of the kit remains the same,” Belgian FA president Peter Bossaert told Het Niewsblad newspaper. The 2018 World Cup bronze medalist will play his first group game on Wednesday (8 p.m. CET/ARD and MagentaTV) against Canada. The now “unloving” away jersey may be used for the first time in the last preliminary round on December 1 (4:00 p.m. CET) against runners-up Croatia. The kit in question features the colors of the rainbow and is intended to reflect the values ??of diversity, equality and inclusion.
The Belgian team also belonged to the “One Love” alliance: the captains of several European nations – including Germany, England and the Netherlands in addition to Belgium – wanted their teams to wear a armband with the “One Love” imprint as a symbol of tolerance and inclusion lead to the field. Under the threat of unspecified sanctions from FIFA, however, all associations decided against it at short notice. The process caused outrage. FIFA had referred to their set of rules, and DFB President Bernd Neuendorf complained that it “feels a lot like censorship”.
Even before the start of the World Cup, FIFA had forbidden the Danish team from wearing the slogan “Human rights for all” on their warm-up shirts. Qatar has been criticized for years for its poor handling of human rights and the living conditions of foreign workers, which has also been voiced by independent organizations such as Amnesty International. The government of the emirate rejects this.