The FA has confirmed that the England national team will wear poppies at Wembley despite a FIFA ban against doing so.
Although talks over the “political statement” ban are ongoing, the chairman of the FA, Greg Clarke, has defiantly stated that England “will”wear the poppies when they face Scotland on Remembrance Sunday.
Clarke bullishly explained, “My personal opinion and actually the same opinion I hold as the chair of the FA, is that of course we should wear poppies. We’re commemorating millions of people who gave their lives in wars over the last 100 years and they deserve that and the people who lost relatives deserve that, and that’s our plan.
“We’re balancing respect for the fallen and their families, with respect for the governing body, and we’re negotiating in good faith with FIFA to try and find a solution, but there will be poppies at Wembley.”
Despite the FA Chairman’s confidence in his words, not everyone agrees with him and there is a possible threat of England and Scotland both being deducted points if they fail to comply to FIFA’s rules.
FIFA’s Senegalese secretary general, Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura argued, “Britain is not the only country that has been suffering as a result of war… Syria is an example. My own [African] continent has been torn by war for years. The only question is ‘why are we doing exceptions for just one country and not the rest of the world.”