Martin Glenn, chief executive of the Football Association, has attacked Pep Guardiola's yellow ribbon, going as far as to compare it to a swastika or ISIS symbol. "Things that are going to be highly divisive, and that could be strong religious symbols, it could be the Star of David, it could be the hammer and sickle, it could be a swastika, anything like Robert Mugabe on your shirt, these are the things we don't want," he said.
Glenn made the strong comments in a press conference in Zurich. He went on to ask: "where do you draw the line? Should we have someone with a UKIP badge, someone with an ISIS badge?" UKIP is the right-wing, Eurosceptic UK Independence Party.
The chief executive said that he didn't want political symbols involved in football. "To be honest, and to be very clear, Pep Guardiola's yellow ribbon is a political symbol, it's a symbol of Catalan independence, and I can tell you there are many more Spaniards, non-Catalans, who are pissed off by it."
As for the poppy, however, common symbol of remembrance for war dead in a number of English-speaking countries, he believes the matter is different. "We have re-written Law 4 of the game so that things like a poppy are OK," he explained, “the problem we had with poppies is that for some reason a new person at FIFA seemed to think poppies were a political symbol and we fought hard against that notion and thankfully sense broke out".
Pep Guardiola, Manchester City's coach, has until today to respond to the accusations against him. The trainer, who expressed support for the holding of last year's self-determination referendum in Catalonia, has ignored previous warnings from the FA and become one of the most influential figures internationally for exporting the issue.
Part apology
Glenn later apologised for any offence caused by listing the Star of David in his examples of symbols. He released a statement reading, in part: "I would like to apologise for any offence caused by the examples I gave when referring to political and religious symbols in football, specifically in reference to the Star of David, which is a hugely important symbol to Jewish people all over the world".