The Irish Times view on the latest World Cup controversy

Like a petulant child, threatening to take the ball away if they don’t get their way, Fifa stamped down at the last minute on plans by captains of the European nations to wear OneLove armbands in World Cup matches. Fifa threatened that wearing the armbands, in support of diversity and inclusion, would result in bookings for the players involved.

Making this threat at the last minute led to the European teams backing down, though they did express frustration at the Fifa decision, saying they had informed the association of their intention to wear the armbands last September, but had received no response. Fifa “no discrimination” armbands are being worn instead.

The countries involved said that they were prepared to pay fines for breaches of kit regulations, but could not see players facing “sporting sanctions.” By moving so late in the day, Fifa clearly calculated that no time was left to dispute this decision, which the teams said was unprecedented.

Perhaps they could have stood up to Fifa? Had England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland all refused to comply, Fifa would have opened itself up to more ridicule by instructing referees to book the players involved. Actions count on the world stage – as seen when the Iranian team refused to sing their national anthem in apparent protest at the recent repressive actions of that country’s regime, following the death of Mahsa Amini.

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The granting of the World Cup to Qatar has been a sorry tale. Fifa president Gianni Infantino made an extraordinary intervention at the weekend, saying he himself felt Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled and a migrant worker.

This sounded extraordinarily ill-judged. But Infantino’s intended audience was the World Cup hosts, who feel the Western media has it in for them. Money talks in football and it spoke again in the decision to ban the OneLove armbands, intended as a response to the Qatari intolerance of the LGBT+ community. If Fifa wanted the World Cup to be dominated by debate about everything but football, it could hardly be doing a better job.