FIFA's official discrimination monitor is demanding the removal of a World Cup video review official after he appeared to flash a white power symbol on live television during Germany's opening match against Curaçao on Sunday.
The official in question, Australian Shaun Evans, was caught on the tournament's broadcast making an inverted "OK" hand gesture in front of his right leg while cameras cut to the VAR team at the Dallas broadcast center. The game itself was played in Houston — Evans never set foot on the pitch, but the broadcast found him anyway.
What the gesture means — and why it matters
The "OK" symbol, with thumb and forefinger forming a circle and remaining fingers extended, was designated a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League in 2019 after being adopted by white supremacist and far-right groups globally. The inverted version, specifically, circulates in neo-Nazi circles as a "white power" signal.
The Fare network — a long-standing FIFA and UEFA partner that monitors racist chants, flags, and symbols at international matches — didn't hedge its language. "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," the organisation said in a statement, calling it "neo-nazi" and adding: "Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup."
That's a direct, public call for removal. Fare doesn't throw that language around lightly.
The circle game defence — plausible, but not the point
There is, to be fair, another possible explanation. The gesture is also associated with the so-called "circle game" or "gotcha" prank — where someone flashes the sign below their waist and punches anyone who looks at it. It's a schoolyard bit that's been around for decades. Evans was working his first-ever World Cup match. A nervous moment of camera awareness turning into an ill-timed joke isn't impossible.
But intent doesn't fully answer the question here. Whether or not Evans meant it as a prank, broadcasting that symbol on global television during a World Cup match — at a tournament FIFA has repeatedly pledged to use as a platform against discrimination — is, at minimum, a catastrophic lapse in judgment for a match official.
- Evans is Australian, with the Professional Football Referees Association and Football Australia both contacted for comment
- FIFA has not yet responded publicly
- Evans was working the Germany vs Curaçao Group A opener in Houston on Sunday
FIFA's silence so far is its own kind of statement. Fare has gone on record. The ball is now squarely in Zurich's court.
