A video review analyst at the FIFA World Cup is facing calls for removal after he appeared to make a hand gesture resembling a white supremacist symbol during a live broadcast.
Incident Details
Shaun Evans from Australia was working as a video review analyst at the World Cup in Texas when the broadcast of Germany's opening game against Curaçao on Sunday showed the team of analysts. Evans made an 'OK' symbol with his right hand in front of his right leg. The game was played in Houston, while video officials operated from the World Cup broadcast centre in Dallas.
Hate Symbol Designation
In 2019, the gesture—thumb and forefinger forming a circle with other fingers outstretched—was designated a hate symbol by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Fare network, a partner of FIFA and UEFA monitoring discrimination, called for action. '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.'
Context and Reactions
FIFA was approached for comment, as were the Professional Football Referees Association and Football Australia. It remained unclear whether Evans, working his first World Cup game, intended a political gesture or was playing a children's game prank known as the 'circle game,' where the OK sign below the waist prompts a punch for anyone who looks. The gesture was co-opted as a white supremacist signal about a decade ago, originating as a hoax on the far-right online message board 4chan.
ADL's Stance
When the symbol was officially designated a hate symbol in 2019, Oren Segal, director of the ADL's Centre on Extremism, stressed that context is crucial. 'There is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add,' he said at the time. Evans is one of 30 video review analysts chosen by FIFA for the World Cup, hosted across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Fare questioned, 'Why is a VAR supervisor using this symbol at a global football event at the very moment he knows the cameras are on him?' They noted that in subsequent games, TV directors have stopped introducing the VAR panel to viewers.
