{"id":738743,"date":"2026-06-15T21:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738743\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T21:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T21:05:08","slug":"racism-monitor-urges-fifa-to-remove-world-cup-official-over-white-supremacy-gesture-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738743\/","title":{"rendered":"Racism monitor urges Fifa to remove World Cup official over \u2018white supremacy\u2019 gesture | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 7-1 win against Cura\u00e7ao<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

In a pre-recorded video showing the team of match officials working on the Group E game, Shaun Evans was shown making an \u201cOK\u201d 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\u2011Defamation League (ADL).<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

In later games on Sunday between the Netherlands and Japan, and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Ecuador, broadcasters did not use footage to introduce the VAR officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdvice from our experts is that the gesture used clearly resembles an upside down \u2018OK\u2019 hand symbol used as a white power symbol in global far\u2011right circles,\u201d Fare said in a statement.\u201cClearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans\u2019s intentions in making the gesture are unclear, and another interpretation is that he was mimicking a popular children\u2019s game. The \u201cgotcha\u201d or \u201ccircle game\u201d involves making an upside down \u201cOK\u201d sign below the waist and punching the shoulder of anyone who looks at it.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Centre on Extremism, said context was the key to interpreting whether an \u201cOK\u201d symbol is hateful or harmless. \u201cThere is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Evans, who was working on his first World Cup game, is among 30 VAR officials selected by Fifa for the tournament.<\/p>\n

Fifa and Football Australia did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa has been urged to suspend one of the World Cup video assistant referees by its official discrimination…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-738743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}