I don't follow sports, so I don't know what proportion of teams wanted to wear the band, but it occurs to me that if they had all stuck to their guns, they could have said, "OK, go ahead with the punishment" and they all could have started with a yellow card and been on the same footing, effectively making the punishment meaningless. It still would have been a pretty empty gesture, but it would have been something.
but it occurs to me that if they had all stuck to their guns, they could have said, “OK, go ahead with the punishment” and they all could have started with a yellow card and been on the same footing
Right. But you had a host of nations that weren't participating at the outset. Only seven of the thirty-two participants were a part of this stunt. Players from countries like Japan, Korea, Brazil, Poland and Saudi Arabia weren't invited or they weren't interested. It was West Europeans Only.
I don't follow sports, so I don't know what proportion of teams wanted to wear the band, but it occurs to me that if they had all stuck to their guns, they could have said, "OK, go ahead with the punishment" and they all could have started with a yellow card and been on the same footing, effectively making the punishment meaningless. It still would have been a pretty empty gesture, but it would have been something.
Right. But you had a host of nations that weren't participating at the outset. Only seven of the thirty-two participants were a part of this stunt. Players from countries like Japan, Korea, Brazil, Poland and Saudi Arabia weren't invited or they weren't interested. It was West Europeans Only.
I see. Yeah, if most of the participating teams weren't going to wear the armband, then it would have been a real punishment.