Fifa urged to remove World Cup VAR official over alleged white supremacist hand gesture

Fifa’s discrimination monitor at the World Cup has called for the removal of a video review official after he appeared to make a hand gesture resembling a white supremacist sign during Sunday’s broadcast of Germany’s opening game against Curaçao in Houston.

Shaun Evans, an Australian official working at his first World Cup, was seen making an “OK” symbol — thumb and forefinger touched in a circle, other fingers outstretched — with his right hand in front of his right leg when the official broadcast cut to show the team of video review analysts before kick-off. Though the match was played in Houston, video officials work remotely at the World Cup broadcast centre in Dallas.

The Fare network, a long-standing partner of both Fifa and UEFA to monitor racist and discriminatory behaviour at international games, issued a statement calling for Evans’s immediate removal. “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,” Fare said, describing the gesture as “neo-nazi.” “Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup.”

The “OK” sign was designated a hate symbol by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League in 2019. At the time, Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, cautioned that context is key to interpreting whether the gesture is hateful or harmless, but added: “There is enough of a volume of use for hateful purposes that we felt it was important to add.”

It remains unclear whether Evans was making a deliberate political gesture or performing the so-called “circle game” — a children’s prank in which someone flashes an upside-down OK sign below their waist and punches anyone who looks at it. The sign was appropriated roughly a decade ago as a white supremacist signal, originating as a hoax on the far-right online message board 4chan before gaining wider use in extremist circles.

Fare also questioned the timing and visibility of the gesture. “Why is a VAR supervisor using this symbol at a global football event at the very moment he knows the cameras are on him?” the organisation said, adding that TV directors appeared to have stopped introducing the VAR panel to viewers in the two subsequent games.

Evans is one of 30 video review analysts selected by Fifa for the tournament being held across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Fifa did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Australia’s Professional Football Referees Association and governing body Football Australia were also contacted.