Former English Soccer Star Wears ‘1 Love’ Armband On Air In Protest Of FIFA Ban

Retired English soccer star Alex Scott wore a ‘OneLove’ armband on live TV hours after FIFA announced captains were not allowed to wear the armband at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Ahead of the 2022 World Cup, Qatar’s human rights record has been heavily scrutinized — given that more than 6,500 migrant workers died while building the new stadiums and hospitality venues for the World Cup. Qatari officials also threatened a Danish reporter and forced an American reporter to delete a picture he took in the media center. And Qatar has laws that criminalize same-sex relationships.

England, Wales, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands planned to wear the ‘OneLove’ armband to protest Qatar’s anti-LGBTQ stance. The armband promotes diversity and inclusion with a rainbow through a heart. The captain of each nation would wear the armband to display which player on the field was the captain.

Yet soccer’s governing body FIFA — which runs the World Cup — barred the captains from wearing the armband on Monday and said captains who chose to wear the armband would receive a yellow card before the game began.

In a joint statement, the six countries responded:

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 the 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.

Scott appeared in 140 matches for England’s women’s national team over 13 years.

Scott, who is in Qatar to cover the English team’s journey throughout the 2022 World Cup for the BBC, decided to wear the armband on her left arm for the TV cameras to see.

Colleague Kelly Sommers pointed out to the TV audience that Scott had the armband on her.

“As you can see, Alex Scott is wearing the OneLove armband as [England manager] Gareth Southgate confirmed to me the England players will not be wearing that,” Sommers said. “Instead, they will be wearing the FIFA armband.”

Watch above via BBC.