As they consider the case of Pep Guardiola, who won his first medal in English football at Wembley on Sunday while semi-surreptitiously sporting a yellow ribbon in support of the jailed members of the Catalan independence movement, the leaders of the Football Association might look back at the record of their own predecessors, and in particular at the events of 1938, when they ordered the England football team to perform the Nazi salute in Berlin’s Olympic stadium.
History tells they did so under instruction from the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Nevile Henderson, who was having a difficult year. On the morning of the match, Henderson had called a meeting with two senior FA figures: the 71-year-old Charles Wreford-Brown, chairman of the international selection committee, and Stanley Rous, the association’s secretary.
Related: Pep Guardiola could face further FA sanction over yellow ribbon defiance
Someone should be able to make Guardiola see that displays of political affiliation are banned for a very good reason
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