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Picture Credit: Twitter

The match between Portugal and Uruguay at the FIFA World Cup 2022 was halted as a fan invaded the pitch in the 51st minute of the play. The invader had a rainbow flag in his hand and a t-shirt with 'Respect For Iranian Women' text imprinted on the back of it. The Superman t-shirt also had ‘Save Ukraine’ text written on it. 

The invader ran with all his might with the rainbow flag in his hand. As two security personnel ran behind him, the guy dropped the flag but tried to draw everyone’s attention to the texts on his t-shirt. In the end, he was tackled by three security guards and was escorted off the field. After the invader was out, the referee had to pick up the flag and remove it. 

Notably, Iran has been seeing a civil unrest since the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the country’s moral police for her dress code not matching the government guidelines. Meanwhile, FIFA had come under scrutiny earlier in the tournament for not letting some European team captains, including England’s Harry Kane, wear rainbow-coloured armbands.

Football Associations of seven European countries - England, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium - issued a joint statement that their captains will not be sporting the armband after FIFA said that doing so would lead to a yellow card for the player.

As a gesture of protest for this, the German team posed for its photo with hands covering their mouths before its opening game against Japan. Also, for the unversed, Qatar is a country where homosexuality is illegal, and hence FIFA had issued a set of guidelines to be followed by fans and teams during the month-long tournament.