Fifa criticised for letting Qatar ‘run the show’ over LGBTQ+ protest threats

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Germany’s players covered their mouths during a team photo ahead of their 2-1 defeat against Japan to show “Fifa is silencing us” by shutting down attempts to wear rainbow-coloured armbands. Football Association of Wales chairman Noel Mooney told ITV News: “Months and months we’ve known that we were going to wear the OneLove armband, they certainly did, and to lay that one on us is pretty cheap and pretty low to be frank, and we’re really disappointed by that attitude.” He added: “There was no way we could ask Gareth Bale to take a yellow or red card at his first World Cup, how could we do that? “We didn’t back down at all actually – we had to look at the sanctions there, we said we would accept any fines or sanctions that came, but when it turned to specific sporting sanctions that would have stopped our players taking the field of play potentially, that’s a different thing.” “We’ve been absolutely furious about this, we’ve given Fifa everything we’ve got about how furious we are, we think it was a terrible decision.” Fans in Doha were split over whether the home nations should follow Germany’s lead. England fan James Fogarty, 39, who lives in Connecticut in the US but originally from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, told the PA news agency: “We knew what we were getting, right – the World Cup shouldn’t have been here but now it’s here, it what it is.” Asked about the armband row, he said: “One of the things that’s slightly irritating is you go into the fan shop, you go into the stadiums and you can only pay by Visa, you can only drink Budweiser, you can only buy Adidas shirts and Fifa has sold out, right, and Fifa have sold out to the Qatari royalty too.