The England captain, Millie Bright, has expressed her intention to utilize all eight captain’s armband options provided by Fifa during the Women’s World Cup. In each game, she plans to carry a different message on her armband. Bright emphasized that the team felt strongly about all the causes and couldn’t prioritize one over the others. Hence, they decided to showcase their support for all the causes that they believe are important and deserving of recognition.
The team made the decision collectively after taking the time to carefully consider each cause and its significance.In their World Cup opener against Haiti on Saturday, Bright (or Mary Earps if she’s unfit to start) will don the “Unite for Inclusion” armband. It’s worth noting that this armband closely resembles the “OneLove” armband, which authorities banned teams, including England, from wearing during the men’s World Cup in Qatar last year.
Unite for Indigenous People Armband
For the second game, scheduled against Denmark next Friday, the England captain plans to wear the Unite for Indigenous People armband provided in Women’s World Cup . As for the final group game against China, they will use the Unite for Gender Equality armband. Should England progress, the captain will wear the Unite for Peace, Unite for Education For All, Unite for Zero Hunger, Unite for Ending Violence Against Women and the Football is Joy Peace, Hope, Love & Passion armbands, in that order.
“Supporting Indigenous people is massively important to us as a team, both staff and players,” Bright said. “We wanted to come to this country and respect the past, the present and the future. We are aware of the past but we want to move forward collectively and make the world a better place. It is something that we always pride ourselves on.
“We have been honoured with two ceremonies and to be able to have conversations and educate ourselves a little bit more on the Aboriginal people and everything which comes with the culture is amazing. We feel really honoured to have had the opportunity.
“As a team, we know what we stand for, what we believe in and we also know the changes that we want to make. So regardless of an armband, we would like to think our actions and our morals represent everything that we believe in and stand for.”