St. George’s Cross is the national flag of England. England’s Football Association recently decided to feature the flag on soccer player’s uniforms but with the color scheme changed to present an LGBT message.
Needless to say, fans aren’t having it. Including the players.
Nike, who provides the kit, promoted the change as a good thing. But at least one player refused to go along with the “new” English flag.
Harvey Elliott, who plays for Liverpool, played an entire match against Azerbaijan with his collar turned up. He also scored twice in the match.
From The Daily Mail, “Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott, 20, scored twice in the young Three Lions’ 5-1 win over Azerbaijan in a Euro under-21 qualifier in Baku – but the flag on his £125 jersey could not be seen for the entire game.”
The story continued:
Harvey has not commented but Liverpool don’t have a collar on their famous red shirts, however, when the Surrey-born attacking midfielder played on loan for Blackburn Rovers in the Championship he kept his collar down.
His decision to turn his collar up on the shirt’s first outing for the Young Lions will pile pressure on England’s first team, who play Brazil at Wembley at 7pm tomorrow. David Seaman suggested earlier that he and other players would have refused to wear it.
It came amid huge anger back home with Rishi Sunak amongst those slamming the decision make the red and white flag blue and purple.
Will the backlash change any minds among decision-makers? So far, the indication is no. There will not be a more polite piece of kit issued for now.
The Football Association said in a statement, ‘We are very proud of the red and white St George’s cross – the England flag. We understand what it means to our fans, and how it unites and inspires, and it will be displayed prominently at Wembley tomorrow – as it always is – when England play Brazil’.
Don’t Mess with the Flag
It turns out, not surprisingly, that this debacle was concocted in America by Nike executives.
“Pressure is growing on the highly-paid executives who signed off the ‘abominable’ changes to the St George’s Cross,” the Mail noted. “Critics have questioned whether Oregon-based £122billion firm would have dared to change the colours of the Stars and Stripes on the US football jersey.”
Fans weren’t having it. To say the least.
After the Bud Light-Dylan Mulvaney fiasco, you would think corporate types would have learned about pushing this kind of nonsense on people.
Guess not.
