Why World Cup players are required to show referees their underwear before games
The World Cup may be taking place in Russia, but down on the pitch, all the referees are saying “I see London, I see France.”
That’s because before every match, every player on the pitch has to show the ref his underpants.
The guaranteed awkward moment before every game is made possible by a weird FIFA rule that requires a player’s undergarments to be the same color as his match kit, and the referee’s policy reduces to “trust, but verify.”
Kevin Kaduk of Yahoo Sports tweeted about the weird rule and its enforcement by a European soccer power prior to Monday’s Belgium-Panama showdown, a 3-0 smackdown of the Central Americans — who snuck into the tournament only because the United States collapsed in qualifying. The match could not commence until all voyeuristic impulses had been duly satisfied.
Ah yes, the traditional “showing of the underwear.” #soccer #WorldCupRussia2018 pic.twitter.com/UFL68Fd6Z3
— Kevin Kaduk (@KevinKaduk) June 18, 2018
This may seem on its surface to be a silly rule, but the Do Not Spray In Eyes Principle applies here.
As many a hack comedian has pointed out, every silly warning label on every consumer product is there because some idiot did the thing that the warning label is telling them not to do.
And FIFA’s rule, adopted by most of its member associations for club soccer, is there to prevent the players from using their undergarments to display messages that may not be FIFA approved.
Like the Danish player, Nicklas Bendtner, who at Euro 2012 racked up an £80,000 (about $105,000 USD) fine for showing off shorts with the colors and logo of a betting company called Paddy Power — which picked up Bendtner’s fine for him.
Viewed in that light, the rule is sensible. The NFL has had a similar rule in place for decades.
Jim McMahon of the Super Bowl-winning 1985 Bears got fined for wearing an Adidas headband during the Bears’ playoff run, violating the league’s equipment and sponsorship rules in the process.
McMahon later wore a headband sporting the words “JDF Cure,” hoping to use the media attention to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and the league backed down rather than risk the bad optics. But imagine if players today used headbands, shoes, or other non-standard uniform apparel to push political messages.
All it would take would be one “Antifa” or “F— Trump” on a headband to set the Internet on fire and cause Stephen A. Smith’s head to explode on live television.
So yes, it may seem utterly ridiculous that FIFA’s telling players to show off their underwear, and if and when they do so at the Women’s World Cup, someone is bound to cry foul.
But the rule is there for a reason.
And besides, nobody remembered anything about the pregame underwear controversy once the match got underway.
After an uneventful first half where the plucky Panama defense held the Belgians scoreless, the second half featured an explosion of goals that left a lot of people probably thinking that CONCACAF gets way too many teams into the tournament for the relative strength of the confederation.
Plain and simple, Panama got pantsed.
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