Football: FA Are Morally Right Over Poppies Issue: Glenn

LONDON, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Nov, 2016 ) : The English Football Association (FA) are morally right to insist on the England team wearing commemorative poppies in Friday's World Cup qualifier with Scotland said chief executive Martin Glenn on Thursday.

World governing body FIFA forbids teams from wearing political, commercial or religious symbols during matches and has warned England and Scotland they could face sanctions if they defy the directive.

But the football associations of both countries have decided their players will wear black armbands with poppy motifs to honour Britain's war dead in the Armistice Day fixture. Glenn, who was speaking at a Sport Industry Club breakfast, said they had been open with FIFA over the issue.

"A couple of weeks ago we told FIFA, in line with what he had agreed with them in 2011 (for a game with Spain) that we would wear armbands, not a poppy embedded in the shirt because FIFA have a law of the game that you cannot use political symbols on shirts," said Glenn.

Glenn, who has been in his post for 18 months after a successful career in the food industry, said the post Sepp Blatter regime headed by Gianni Infantino had wanted to make a point. "We had a row with them in 2011 and thought we had got over it," said Glenn referring to a dispute with the then Blatter-run FIFA who eventually conceded and allowed England to wear poppies on armbands in a friendly with Spain.