Germany taking FIFA to Court of Arbitration for Sport over One Love armband ban

The German football association is taking FIFA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport over their ban on players wearing One Love armbands at the World Cup in Qatar.

The DFB has told Germany captain Manuel Never not to wear the rainbow armband in their opening game against Japan on Wednesday.

They had been warned by FIFA they would face "massive" sporting sanctions if they broke tournament rules by allowing their captain to wear the armband which promotes diversity and inclusion.

A quick decision by CAS ruling against the validity of the ban could mean that Neuer would be able to wear the armband for Germany's second group game against Spain on Sunday.

A special ad hoc division of CAS set up for this World Cup aims to make decisions within 48 hours of receiving an application.

The DFB lost one of its commercial partners on Tuesday when German supermarket chain REWE ended its sponsorship deal over the armband dispute.

REWE chief executive Lionel Souque said: "We stand for diversity and football is diversity. The scandalous behaviour of FIFA is for me as the CEO of a diverse company, as well as a football fan, absolutely unacceptable."

The news came after the DFB said teams planning to wear the OneLove armband during their matches were subjected to "extreme blackmail".

The DFB's media director Steffen Simon told Deutschlandfunk radio that England, who were the first team planning to wear it, had been threatened with multiple sporting sanctions.

"The tournament director went to the English team and talked about multiple rule violations and threatened with massive sporting sanctions without specifying what these would be," he said.

Simon, who did not say if he was referring to Qatari organisers or FIFA in his reference to the tournament director, said the other six nations then decided to "show solidarity" with England and not wear it.

"We lost the armband and it is very painful but we are the same people as before with the same values. We are not impostors who claim they have values and then betray them," he said.

"We were in an extreme situation, in an extreme blackmail and we thought we had to take that decision without wanting to do so."