Garmany’s Football Association (DFB) has spoken out about FIFA’s moves to persuade teams to ditch the donning of pro-LGBTQ+ armbands at Qatar’s World Cup, saying the organisation used “extreme blackmail.”
The controversy erupted after captains of several European teams, including Germany, England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland, decided to don the OneLove LGBTQ+ armbands during the World Cup in Qatar, a decision which was later changed after FIFA threatened to punish teams with a yellow card.
In a joint statement, the countries’ Football Associations explained, “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.”
However, since the statement, DFB’s media director, Steffen Simon, has hit out at FIFA and described the situation as “extreme blackmail.”
Simon made the remarks in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio following England’s match against Iran on Monday, adding, “The tournament director went to the English team and talked about multiple rule violations and threatened with massive sporting sanctions without specifying what these would be.”
Following FIFA’s threats, Simon explained how in a sign of “solidarity” with the England team, all other football associations who had also planned on donning the armbands decided not to wear them.
“We lost the armband, and it is very painful, but we are the same people as before with the same values.”
“We are not imposters who claim they have values and then betray them. We were in an extreme situation, in an extreme blackmail, and we thought we had to take that decision without wanting to do so.”
The DFB has since confirmed that it intends to take legal action against FIFA over the LGBTQ+ armband ban issue.
“FIFA has banned us from showing diversity and human rights,” A spokesperson for the DFB told Welt.
“FIFA combined this with massive threats of sporting sanctions without specifying them.”
 has spoken out about FIFA’s moves to persuade teams to ditch the donning of pro-LGBTQ+ armbands at Qatar’s World Cup, saying the organisation used “extreme blackmail.”){kind=link}