FOOTBALL: FIFA urges Belgium to remove ‘LOVE’ from World Cup away shirt

FIFA has demand­ed that the word ‘LOVE’ be removed from the col­lar of the Bel­gian nation­al team’s away shirt.

The con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion comes two days before Rober­to Mar­tinez’s side open their World Cup against Cana­da on Wednes­day night.

Accord­ing to ESPN, FIFA flat­ly refused to talk to the Bel­gian fed­er­a­tion, leav­ing no room for nego­ti­a­tion. At this stage, no deci­sion has been made on whether to accept the League of Nations’ request.

The news comes as Eng­land, Wales, Bel­gium, Den­mark, Ger­many and the Nether­lands have giv­en up on wear­ing OneLove anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion arm­bands in the World Cup open­er and will receive a yel­low card if their cap­tains par­tic­i­pate in the effort. It was announced after it was confirmed.

This announce­ment was made just before the World Cup. The nation­al fed­er­a­tions had said they could pay a fine for the cap­tain to wear the OneLove arm­band, but plans were forced to change when it became clear that the cap­tain would be sanctioned.

In June, Bel­gium announced a part­ner­ship with Tomor­row­land, an elec­tron­ic dance music fes­ti­val held in Boom (Flan­ders) since 2005 and said to be the world’s largest festival.

Bel­gium want­ed to make a love T‑shirt, so they put the word ‘LOVE’ on the col­lar of their away shirt.

The shirt has been on sale for a few months now and has proven to be very pop­u­lar with fans. This ini­tia­tive has noth­ing to do with the ‘OneLove’ arm­bands that some Euro­pean teams, such as Bel­gium, want­ed to wear.

Bel­gium were due to wear their own jer­seys for the tour­na­ment. If FIFA com­plies, kit mak­er Adi­das will have to make new shirts and send them to Qatar.

FIFPRO, the glob­al foot­ballers’ union, has also crit­i­cized FIFA’s deci­sion to sanc­tion play­ers who wish to wear armbands.

“Play­ers should have the right to express their sup­port for human rights on and off the pitch, and we use our plat­form to sup­port all those who do,” the union said in a statement.

“The rain­bow flag is not a polit­i­cal state­ment, but an advo­cate for equal­i­ty and a uni­ver­sal human right.