Donald MacLeod: Who do FIFA think they are, interfering with the poppy?

FIFA’S shocking decision to ban England and Scotland players from wearing poppies on armbands at Friday’s World Cup qualifier has rightly been condemned.

Was there ever a more shameful own-goal scored in football?

Who the hell do the faceless suits at FIFA they think they are?

The very notion this cabal of discredited Swiss-based money-grabbers should have any say on this matter is absolutely repugnant.

How dare they claim the wearing of poppy emblems is a political statement.

Political statement? What can be more political than granting Russia – a country where human rights and democracy are regarded as a sign of weakness – the next World Cup?

Then there is their decision to hold the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a brutal dictatorship.

Hypocrites, the lot of them. How dare they take the moral high ground!

What next? Will competing nations be banned from singing their national anthems?

Let’s not forget there would be no FIFA, no World Cup if it weren’t for the sacrifices made by millions of men and women through two World Wars and other conflicts since.

I would never insist that people must wear a poppy.

Equally, I would never demand everyone should stop what they are doing to remember the war dead. Only that they consider it and respect all those that do.

It is a personal choice.

Nor do I care for what colour poppies are or the politics surrounding their colours.

Red, white, rainbow, black or none at all it makes no difference to me. Again it is a personal matter of choice, one we are all free to make and which should be respected.

A freedom we wouldn’t have had, a choice we wouldn’t have been able to make if wasn’t for those who made defended those values.

And FIFA should remember that, especially when so many of them have been caught on the hey diddle diddle, lining their pockets.

Poppies would have been the least of their worries if Hitler and his Nazis were in charge and had caught them at it.

Finally, now that the SFA has made a decision and grown some, erm, footballs by defying FIFA, can it now make another one that would also be well received by both players and the Tartan Army and get rid of that awful pink Scotland strip?

Perhaps they could design one emblazoned with poppies?

Donald MacLeod: How many lives have been ruined in the name of profit?