England star Jack Grealish has hit out at the "stupid" decision by FIFA to threaten nine countries into abandoning their support for the One Love armband.
The One Love campaign was being used as an attempt to show support for the LGBT+ community, who are persecuted by World Cup hosts Qatar. Mirror Football revealed last week how LGBT+ people have been arrested, beaten unconscious and forced into conversion therapy by security forces in the country.
Three Lions skipper Harry Kane had been set to be one of the captains to wear the armband, but that gesture was abandoned when FIFA confirmed players would be shown a yellow card if they did so. The FA joined the other associations in climbing down from their support of the LGBT+ community as a result.
In a joint statement, they insisted they could not risk their players suffering sporting sanctions. They had been prepared to pay fines and wrote to FIFA in September informing them the One Love armband would be worn.
FIFA only responded to that request on Sunday when they confirmed captains would be booked for doing so. Grealish has clearly been left frustrated by the move, which has also been widely condemned by many pundits.
The Manchester City star scored England's final goal in their win over Iran on Monday. And following the game he slammed the decision to prevent Kane and the other captains wearing the One Love armband.
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"Obviously we wanted to wear it. I think it's a bit stupid why we couldn't. Harry himself wanted to wear it, we all wanted Harry to wear it but sometimes in life and in football things are out of your control and there's not much you can do about it," he told ITV Sport.
"I'll be honest with you, I actually haven't been in no meetings or anything about it. But from my point of view and everybody else's in there, we all wanted Harry to wear it but I read before that he might get booked so there's stuff out of your control.
"But from me and all the lads we wanted Harry to wear it. We feel strongly about it, we're with them [LGBT+ fans], we wish they were here with us. All I can say is we wanted to wear it, we feel the same way they do."
England supporters group Three Lions Pride and Wales' Rainbow Wall also released a joint statement blasting FIFA. "All of us at 3 Lions Pride and The Rainbow Wall stand together in condemning the actions of FIFA today," the statement read.
"In seeking to censor European FA's and players by forcing them to abandon using the ‘OneLove’ Armband aimed at tackling all forms of discrimination, FIFA are guilty of crushing the basic human rights to freedom of speech and of expression that every single one of us should have without question.
"In doing so, FIFA are also guilty of silencing anti-discrimination work within the game and of giving a platform to hatred. This abuse of power by those who have chosen to remain silent for so long is a gross betrayal of trust and cannot be allowed to stand. We have no faith in FIFA, no trust in this World Cup, there is No Pride Without All."
Grealish's reaction to FIFA's actions came as Wales fans entering the stadium for their side's clash with the United States had Rainbow bucket hats confiscated. A journalist was also detained by security guards at the Wales came when he tried to enter wearing a shirt with a rainbow football on it.
