By Philip O’Connor
AL RAYYAN, Qatar (Reuters) – The Danish Football Association (DBU) has said that it would not support the re-election of Gianni Infantino as FIFA president after world soccer’s governing body threatened teams wearing the “OneLove” armband with a yellow card at a minimum.
Speaking at a media briefing on Wednesday, DBU president Jesper Moeller said that he was angered by FIFA’s actions and that the association had ruled out voting for Infantino in next year’s election.
“There is only one candidate, and we’ll have to see if there’s another candidate, there is still time, but Denmark will not be supporting the current president,” he said.
“This situation is quite extraordinary. I’m not just disappointed, I’m angry. This is my seventh finals… It is that the players have to be exposed to this is completely unacceptable. We have to respond to it,” Moeller added.
Jakob Jensen, CEO of the DBU, outlined the communication that the association had with the governing body, telling them before the tournament that they intended to wear the armband in support of diversity.
Jensen said that the English FA was then expressly told at a meeting that the team captain might receive a yellow card for wearing the armband.
“We were told that at the very least we would get a yellow card. It has been discussed whether there was any authority to give us a yellow card at all. It is there. We could have got a yellow card, we could have been suspended,” he told a news conference at the team’s training base.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, additional reporting by Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
