The world governing football body, FIFA, announced to TASS on Tuesday that it is up to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to decide on national teams’ design of uniforms for the 2020 UEFA Euro Cup.
On June 7, UEFA’s press service announced that the Union of European Football Associations had greenlighted the Ukrainian national team gear for the upcoming European Football Championship "in accordance with the applicable equipment regulations."
The Ukrainian national team’s uniforms for the upcoming championship feature slogans chanted by Ukrainian nationalists, namely: ‘Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!’ The uniforms also demonstrate a blurred image outlining Ukraine’s state borders, which include the territories in Donbass and also the territory of Russia’s Crimea.
"The approval of the equipment of the participating teams rests at the discretion of the relevant competition organizer, in this case, UEFA," the FIFA press office told TASS in a statement. "Similarly, the competition organizer has the right to set applicable equipment regulations to which participating teams must comply."
"In doing so, the competition organizers are required to ensure that any equipment used is in line with the Laws of the Game as issued by the International Football Board [IFAB], and which can be accessed by the public at the IFAB official website," according to FIFA. "In keeping with the above, as the competition in question is not organized by FIFA it does not fall under our immediate responsibility."
"However, we would like to reiterate that as per the FIFA Statutes, FIFA remains neutral in matters of politics and we firmly believe that politics and sport should not mix," TASS cited the statement as saying.
