World Cup Diary | Day Five

Day 5: Switzerland v Cameroon, Uruguay v South Korea, Portugal v Ghana, Brazil v Serbia

In the 10 years leading up to this World Cup, Qatar's message was simple: everybody will be welcome. You'll be able to drink alcohol in the stadiums. You'll be able to wear rainbow colours. We only ask you respect our culture. So much for that.

Before Wales' game with the USA fans were asked to remove, or had items of clothing confiscated, that had rainbow insignia on. Grant Wahl, a US journalist, was detained by security. He was taken to a room and kept there for over half an hour, they confiscated his phone and repeatedly asked him to remove his shirt.

“You can make this easy” one security officer said. You can make this easy sounds like a line straight from a gangster movie. Perhaps when they realised that Grant Wahl has north of 800,000 followers on twitter, and the photo he had tweeted before they took his phone from him was trending, they realised they needed to let him in. “We were just trying to protect you from fans who might harm you for wearing the shirt”.

There might be some truth in that. A different US supporter had a rainbow flag on the metro, travelling to a game, “this is banned in our country” said one of the passengers, before threatening to kill him.

But after urgent discussion with the Football Association of Wales, FIFA have now announced that clothes with rainbows on are allowed after all, and supporters will not be detained when wearing them to any venue for the rest of the tournament.

U-turn after u-turn, no wonder no-one knows where they stand. All aboard the magical FIFA merry-go-round. To me, an item of clothing with a rainbow on is innocuous, perhaps to a Qatari it is some kind of violence to their eyes. But to give the message for 10 years that the symbol would be allowed, and then to detain people on the gate, whichever way you look at it, is completely ridiculous.

It was of particular importance to the FA of Wales that crisis talks with FIFA over detention of fans reach a resolution. Cymru have waited a couple of generations to see the red, yellow and green of their proud nation at a World Cup. They know they might not have another opportunity to see this happen again in their lifetimes. And to have waited so long, and to be treated in such a way at the gates of a football stadium, is an emotionally charged issue.

But this Friday's Wales v Iran game will be emotionally charged for both sides. Back in Iran, the situation seems like it will get worse before it gets better. And in a move that is seen as a possible warning to the Iran World Cup squad, Voria Ghafouri, one of the nations most famous footballers, has been arrested for: “insulting and intending to destroy the national football team and speaking against the regime”.

Ghafouri had recently tweeted, “If you are indifferent to the killing of people, you are not an Iranian and you are not even a human being”.

Iran's coach, Carlos Queiroz, is well aware of the pressure his players are under. And was frustrated at journalists today asking about the revolution back home, and I'll paraphrase here:“Why don't you ask Southgate about why they left Afghanistan and all the women alone?”

There's been a lot of whataboutism and other logical fallacies in the debates surrounding this tournament. The reasons no one has asked England coach Gareth Southgate about the UK's withdrawal from Afghanistan are numerous. Firstly, in terms of the media's news cycle, it might as well be ancient history, it happened over year ago, the HBO documentary has already been released. Secondly, it wasn't a directive that came from the UK, UK troops were under the UN-authorised, NATO-led International Security Assistance Fo...