A large cohort of European nations has announced that they are scrapping plans to see their players wear pro-LGBT armbands in Islamist Qatar during the World Cup.
The national football associations of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland have all backed down on their pledge to get their team captains to wear pro-LGBT armbands at the World Cup, which is being held in the Islamist state of Qatar.
While many western pundits and nations have expressed outrage that the sporting competition is being held in the middle-eastern state for issues not limited to extreme homophobia and slavery allegations, these protests so far have so far fallen flat with the Qatari government showing no sign of backing down on its own Islamist agenda during the competition.
This trend of the woke West failing to impose its values externally appears to have continued on Monday, with UK broadcaster Sky Sports reporting that a coalition of European nations was backing down on their campaign to push for more LGBT rights while playing football in Qatar.
While the seven nations had planned to get their team captains to wear rainbow “One Love” armbands during the competition, threats from the football world governing body Fifa appear to have put the plan in the ground.
“Fifa has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play,” a joint statement from the seven nations reportedly read.
“As national federations, we can’t put out 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,” it continued.
The national bodies went on to say that they were “very frustrated” with Fifa’s decision to crack down on the wearing of the armbands, but admitted that they would now have to find “other ways” to “show support”.
The announcement marks another cultural victory for Islamist Qatar, with the nation having so far run roughshod over any concerns expressed by the woke West over the competition.
For example, while initially agreeing to allow the widescale sale of certain alcoholic products — namely Budweiser — throughout the duration of the tournament, the Qatari government announced at the last minute that it would mostly ban the general sale of the alcoholic beer in sporting stadiums hosting World Cup games.
Such a U-turn appears to have dramatically curbed a deal that Fifa had with the Budweiser brand, with Forbes speculating that the beer’s parent company could see its inability to sell alcoholic products throughout the tournament as a breach of contract on Fifa’s behalf.
Nevertheless, Fifa has actually defended the plan, with the organisation’s president saying that fans “will survive” without easy access to alcohol.
The footballing body has meanwhile been quick to attack any criticism of Qatar as being motivated by some sort of “racism“, most notably alleging that complaints against the abysmal human rights record of the Islamist state are “pure hypocrisy“.
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