Racism monitor urges Fifa to remove World Cup official over ‘white supremacy’ gesture

VAR official Shaun Evans made ‘OK’ sign with right hand.

Shaun Evans (left) makes the controversial hand gesture while being introduced as a video assistant referee before Germany versus Curaçao. Photograph: Youtube

Fifa’s discrimination monitor at the World Cup called for a video assistant referee (VAR) to be removed for appearing to make a hand gesture resembling a white supremacist sign.

When the official broadcast of Germany’s opening game against Curaçao on Sunday cut pre-game to show the team of VAR officials, Shaun Evans from Australia made an “OK” symbol with his right hand in front of his right leg. Though the game was played in Houston, VAR officials work in Dallas at the World Cup broadcast centre. In 2019, the gesture – with thumb and forefinger touched in a circle and other fingers outstretched – was designated a hate symbol by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.

“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,” the Fare network, a longtime partner of Fifa and Uefa, the European football governing body, to monitor racist and discriminatory chants, flags and symbols at international games, said in a statement. “Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup,” Fare said in a statement, describing the gesture as “neo-Nazi.” 

Fifa was asked for comment. In Australia, the Professional Football Referees Association and the governing body Football Australia were contacted for comment.

It was unclear if Evans, working at his first game at the World Cup, was making a political gesture or playing a children’s game prank.

The “gotcha” or “circle game” is where someone flashes an upside down OK sign below their waist and punches in the shoulder anyone who looks at it. It was appropriated a decade ago as a signal for white supremacy that started as a hoax on the far-right online message board 4chan.

In 2019 when the sign was designated as a hate symbol, Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Centre on Extremism, said context is key to interpreting whether an “OK” symbol is hateful or harmless. At the time, he said, “there is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add”.

Evans is among 30 VAR officials selected by Fifa to work at the World Cup being played in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“Why is a VAR supervisor using this symbol at a global football event at the very moment he knows the cameras are on him?” Fare said. “We note that in the two subsequent games it appears TV directors have stopped introducing the VAR panel to the TV audience.”