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FA In Fifa Poppy Talks Over England-Scotland Game
The Football Association is in discussions with Fifa over allowing players to show support for the Royal British Legion's poppy appeal when England play Scotland.
Gareth Southgate's side host their neighbours at Wembley on Armistice Day in a World Cup qualifier.
A report in the Sun titled "3 Lions Led By Donkeys" claimed Fifa had banned the two teams from displaying poppies on their shirts during the game as political statements are not allowed.
A petition has also been launched by John Nichol, a former RAF prisoner of war, calling on Fifa and the FA to allow the England and Scottish players to wear their poppy.
In 2011, Fifa eventually backed down after threatening to ban the England team from wearing poppies in a friendly against Spain, allowing them to display the symbol on black armbands.
An FA statement read: "We are working closely with the Royal British Legion once again this year to honour and remember the sacrifices made by those serving in the Armed Forces.
"In recent weeks, the FA has led remembrance discussions with Fifa to allow the England team to show its support for the poppy appeal during the World Cup qualifier with Scotland."
A football team of British soldiers with gas masks, France, 1916
Poppies became a symbol of respect for war veterans and the dead after John McCrae's poem 'In Flanders Fields' was written to commemorate Commonwealth soldiers who'd fallen in Flanders, where poppies are common and grew around the bodies and graves of soldiers.
Football was very popular with British soldiers in the First World War. Many were recruited for 'Kitchener's (New) Army' from local football teams, and the sport was used to by the Army to keep soldiers fit, active, and to improve morale.
One particularly iconic image is of a subaltern in the 32nd Division leading his men into battle on the first day of the Battle of the Somme by kicking a football into no-man's-land.
Cover image: The Laird of Oldham
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