FA Chief Mark Bullingham has confirmed England players would have faced “unlimited” punishment for wearing the One Love armband.
England captain Harry Kane was blocked from making the anti-discrimination gesture after FIFA threatened the seven nations who had signed up to wear it. While the Three Lions have been blocked from making any kind of gesture out in Qatar, the iconic Wembley arch has been lit up in rainbow colours on Friday night as Gareth Southgate's men take on the USA.
When it comes to the now infamous OneLove armband, there were fears Kane could have been stopped from playing, the game stopped and all players left facing a ban.
But FA chief executive Bullingham, in an interview with ITV, said any player would have faced further punishment on top of the yellow card and it could have threatened England’s whole World Cup campaign.
Bullingham said: “It’s very important to understand what happened here. We have been clear that we wanted to wear it and we were committed.
“We announced that we would do that in September, we had a lot of meetings with FIFA over that period and on Saturday before the game we felt we’d reached an understanding where we would wear it. We hadn’t got permission but we would face a fine for it.
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“Unfortunately then on the day of the game they gave us ten minutes notice - two hours before we were due to go to the game… they came here with five officials and they ran us through a scenario where at a minimum anyone wearing the armband would be booked and face disciplinary action on top of that.
“It was unlimited. They would take disciplinary action against any player that was wearing the armband on top of having a yellow card.”
When asked if that could have meant any player wearing the armband could have faced a ban for further games, rather than only a yellow card, Bullingham replied: “That’s correct.
“It’s not clear though they just said they would take disciplinary action and obviously there’s unlimited liability effectively in that action.”
England have the chance to secure their place in the last 16 of the World Cup with a win against the USA on Friday night. A win would also almost guarantee their status as winners of Group B.
