Nations will not be muzzled by Infantino decree after World Cup letter

FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s plea for World Cup teams to focus on football and forget about the politics in Qatar appears to have backfired in spectacular fashion as football saw a fresh wave of protests over human rights abuses in the Gulf state which hosts the World Cup this month.

The FIFA president sparked outrage with his letter to competing nations asking them not be dragged into ‘ideological and political battles’ and requesting that they now ‘please now focus on the football’ as ‘no one people or culture is better than any other.’

But England and nine other European nations, including Germany and France, will wear One Love armbands in defiance of FIFA and have no plans to back to back down.

FIFA have written a letter asking the footballing world to focus on the game at the World Cup

The tournament has been engulfed in controversy over human rights issues in Qatar

A joint statement is expected from the European nations in response to Infantino, reinforcing their campaign, which is intended to draw attention to human rights in general and the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Qatar —though the campaign itself has been criticised for not being direct enough and not even mentioning gay rights by name.

In Germany on Sunday, fans displayed banners on the terraces in a coordinated protest, with Borussia Dortmund’s famous Sudtribune, known as the Yellow Wall, unfurling a huge ‘Boycott Qatar’ banner, saying the World Cup was a ‘human catastrophe’.

Hertha Berlin’s Ostkurve displayed a banner reading ‘15,000 deaths for 5,760 minutes of football: Shame on you!’ and Bayern Munich fans in the away end of the stadium displayed their own banner with the same message.

Hertha Berlin’s fans displayed a banner reading ‘15,000 deaths for 5,760 minutes of football: Shame on you!’ on Saturday

Several captains – including Harry Kane – will wear One Love rainbow armbands in Qatar

The banners referred to the number of migrant workers who died in Qatar working on building projects in the run-up to the World Cup, which is widely disputed but reckoned by most reputable human rights agencies to be in thousands.

Finland’s former captain Tim Sparv, who won 84 caps for his country, has also hit out at Infatino’s letter.

He said: ‘This letter is exactly as tone-deaf and arrogant as you would expect from the hierarchy at FIFA. It shows me that FIFA is rattled. The world deserves to know the whole story.’

Former Finland captain Tim Sparv described FIFA’s letter as ‘tone-deaf’ and ‘arrogant’