FIFA maintained its ban on the wearing "One Love" armbands at the 2023 Women's World Cup and offered federation-approved bands instead, which highlight an assortment of social justice issues.
Courtesy of rawpixel.com via The Minnesota Republic.
By Emily Tarinelli ’25
Sports Editor
Ahead of the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the International Federation of Association Football confirmed that armbands representing the OneLove campaign would remain prohibited at the tournament, according to an article published by The Guardian on June 30.
The decision is not the first time FIFA has banned the armbands’ appearance on the pitch. The Guardian reported that before the 2022 Men’s World Cup, England and six other national teams announced their intention to wear the OneLove armband in support of LGBTQ+ rights. The bands would have protested the criminalization of same-sex relationships in Qatar, the tournament’s host country, CBS News stated. But just prior to kickoff, FIFA declared that any player displaying the accessory would receive a yellow card.
If a player receives two yellow cards, they are removed from the game, CBS News reported. The participating teams decided not to wear the armbands as a result.
With the Women’s World Cup slated to begin on July 20, FIFA announced in a press release that instead of the OneLove arm piece, players will have the option to sport federation-approved armbands that highlight an assortment of social justice causes as part of the global “Football Unites the World” campaign.
“After some very open talks with stakeholders, including member associations and players, we have decided to highlight a series of social causes — from inclusion to gender equality, from peace to ending hunger, from education to tackling domestic violence — during all 64 matches at the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in the statement.
The armbands will come in a variety of eight messages: “Unite for Inclusion,” “Unite for Indigenous Peoples,” “Unite for Gender Equality,” “Unite for Peace,” “Unite for Education for All,” Unite for Zero Hunger,” “Unite for Ending Violence Against Women,” and “Football is Joy, Peace, Love, Hope and Passion.” The themes were picked after a series of discussions with the 32 competing teams, athletes and U.N. offices.
Team captains will choose between wearing an armband that states “Football Unites the World,” one of the eight thematic armbands, or the armband that matches the theme of the day’s particular game.
“Football unites the world and our global events, such as the FIFA Women’s World Cup, have a unique power to bring people together and provide joy, excitement and passion,” Infantino said in a statement about the armbands published on the FIFA website. “But football does even more than that — it can shine the spotlight on very important causes in our society.”
According to Sports Pro Media, the “Unite for Inclusion” band is strikingly similar to the OneLove band. Both bands feature a heart with red, black and green stripes to represent diversity across race and heritage and blue, yellow and pink stripes to represent inclusivity across gender identities and sexual orientations. Red, black and green are notably the colors of the Pan-African flag, while the combination of blue, yellow and pink is featured on the pansexual pride flag. Apart from the textual message, the only variation between the two armbands lies in a small difference in design: the stripes run diagonally across the OneLove heart, while they appear horizontally in the Unite for Inclusion one.
According to a video posted on The News Movement’s Instagram page, FIFA’s announcement has drawn a divided opinion from the public. Some believe that because of the strong similarity between the two armbands, the OneLove campaign will still be alluded to in the World Cup this year. Others, however, maintain that the FIFA-supplied armbands still contain no mention or explicit support of LGBTQ+ rights.
According to Sports Pro Media, Georgia Stanway, midfielder for England’s national team, gave a stance on the OneLove arm pieces during a press conference just before FIFA’s announcement.
“I think no matter what the outcome is, whether it goes our way or not, we know that we will still stand for exactly the same thing,” Stanway said during a press conference. “If we can or can’t wear the armband, we know that we wanted to and we’ll be ready to stand by the fact that we wanted to. Whatever the outcome is, we’ll still stand by whatever we believed in and whatever we wanted to be the resolution.”