English soccer chief apologizes for ‘offensive’ Star of David comment

LONDON — English Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn apologizes on Monday for “offensive” comments he made comparing the Jewish Star of David with symbols such as the Nazi swastika.

Glenn’s remarks, criticized by a leading member of Britain’s Jewish community, came as he tried to justify the FA’s decision to charge Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola for wearing a yellow ribbon in support of jailed Catalan independence leaders.

The FA has faced accusations of hypocrisy, given their prolonged campaign to persuade world soccer chiefs to allow players to display a poppy on their shirt to mark Armistice Day.

But Glenn, speaking following a meeting of the International Football Association Board, soccer’s global law-making body, in Zurich, rejected the comparison.

“We have rewritten Law 4 of the game so that things like a poppy are OK but things that are going to be highly divisive are not,” Glenn was quoted as saying in British newspapers.

“That could be strong religious symbols, it could be the Star of David, it could the hammer and sickle, it could be a swastika, anything like (former Zimbabwe president) Robert Mugabe on your shirt — these are the things we don’t want.

“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.”

— AFP