Germany Protests World Cup Censorship and Human Rights With Pre-Match Team Photo
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Germany’s soccer team posed for a picture and covered their mouths in protest of FIFA’s censorship after World Cup officials would not allow countries to wear a “OneLove” armband to support equality.
The human rights record of World Cup host Qatar has been heavily criticized — as more than 6,500 migrant workers reportedly died while constructing the stadiums and hospitality venues for the tournament. Qatar also has laws that criminalize people who participate in same-sex relationships.
Before the matches started, Qatari officials threatened a Danish reporter while he was in the middle of a live update and forced American journalist, Grant Wahl, to delete a picture of the World Cup slogan off his phone.
England, Germany, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands planned to wear an armband with “OneLove” written on it with rainbow colors to support inclusion and diversity. On Monday, FIFA, soccer’s governing body, banned the captains of each team from wearing the armband and stated players who wore the armband would receive a yellow card before the game started. England opted not to wear the armband.
The six countries released a joint statement on Monday before England’s match against Iran. It read as:
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.
BBC analyst and former English women’s soccer team star Alex Scott wore the “OneLove” armband on live TV to protest FIFA’s ruling.
The German team decided to do their own silent protest before their match against Japan on Wednesday. All 11 starting players posed in front of the camera as their hands covered their mouths.
The picture was posted to the German national team’s Twitter page, and the caption read:
We wanted to use our captain’s armband to take a stand for values that we hold in the Germany national team: diversity and mutual respect. Together with our nations, we wanted our voice to be heard.
It wasn’t about making a political statement – human rights are non-negotiable. That should be taken for granted, but it still isn’t the case. That’s why this message is so important to us.
Denying us the armband is the same as denying us a voice. We stand by our position.
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