Fifa has been urged to suspend one of the World Cup video assistant referees by its official discrimination monitor after an Australian official was accused of making a hand gesture often used by white supremacists before Germany’s 7-1 win against Curaçao on Sunday.

In a pre-recorded video showing the team of match officials working on the Group E game, Shaun Evans was shown making an “OK” symbol by curling his thumb and forefinger in front of his right leg, a gesture which in 2019 was designated a hate symbol by the New York-based Anti‑Defamation League (ADL).

Evans was accused of making a racist symbol by observers online, and the anti-discrimination group Fare called for him to be removed from the World Cup. Formerly known as Football Against Racism, Fare are longstanding partners of Fifa and Uefa and send observers to matches to monitor any racist or discriminatory incidents.

In later games on Sunday between the Netherlands and Japan, and Côte d’Ivoire and Ecuador, broadcasters did not use footage to introduce the VAR officials.

“Advice from our experts is that the gesture used clearly resembles an upside down ‘OK’ hand symbol used as a white power symbol in global far‑right circles,” Fare said in a statement.“Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup.

“Why is a VAR supervisor using this symbol at a global football event at the very moment he knows the cameras are on him? We note that in the two subsequent games it appears TV directors have stopped introducing the VAR panel to the TV audience.”

Evans’s intentions in making the gesture are unclear, and another interpretation is that he was mimicking a popular children’s game. The “gotcha” or “circle game” involves making an upside down “OK” sign below the waist and punching the shoulder of anyone who looks at it.

The symbol was appropriated a decade ago as a signal for white supremacy that started as a hoax on the far-right online messageboard 4chan. In 2019 when the sign was designated as a hate symbol, Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Centre on Extremism, said context was the key to interpreting whether an “OK” symbol is hateful or harmless. “There is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add,” he said.

Evans, who was working on his first World Cup game, is among 30 VAR officials selected by Fifa for the tournament.

Fifa and Football Australia did not respond to requests for comment.