Redknapp slams FIFA over poppy ban

Harry Redknapp has slammed the compromise reached by FIFA with the FA over the banning of embroidered poppies on England’s team shirts.

FIFA will now allow England and other home nations’ players to wear black armbands embroidered with the poppy to commemorate Remembrance Day after refusing to allow them to be stitched on to their shirts.

While Redknapp said he was happy to see the poppy allowed in some form, he blasted FIFA’s approach to the situation as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘picky’.

“I suppose letting players wear them on armbands is something – but in a way it makes the whole situation even more ridiculous,” he wrote in his column in The Sun.

“If you can wear poppies on armbands, why not on the chest?”

“It just sounds like FIFA is being picky to me now. And it’s frightening when you have people like that running the game.”

The England Under-21 side play Iceland in a European Championship qualification match before the senior team face Spain at the weekend and manager Stuart Pearce hoped his team would pay their tributes with or without the poppy.

“We asked the question about the poppies but FIFA initially said they didn’t want us to do it,” he said.

“Even if that had been the end of the argument, it would not have diminished what’s in my heart and my respect for those who have given their lives for this country.”