VAR Official Shaun Evans Accused of Making White Power Gesture at World Cup 2026
Fifa’s official discrimination monitor has called for the suspension of an Australian video assistant referee after he was accused of making a hand gesture associated with white supremacist movements during a World Cup group stage match.
According to The Guardian, Shaun Evans — one of 30 VAR officials selected by Fifa for the tournament — was captured in pre-match broadcast footage making an upside-down ‘OK’ symbol with his right hand, curling his thumb and forefinger in front of his right leg, before Germany’s 7-1 Group E victory over Curaçao on Sunday.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a New York-based civil rights organisation, designated the gesture a hate symbol in 2019 after it was adopted by far-right groups as a white power signal. The symbol originally spread as a hoax on the online messageboard 4chan roughly a decade ago before being appropriated in earnest by extremists.
Anti-discrimination group Fare — formerly Football Against Racism and a longstanding partner of both Fifa and Uefa — quickly called for Evans to be removed from the competition entirely. In a statement, Fare said: “Clearly this official should have no further role to play in this World Cup,” adding that their experts believed the gesture “clearly resembles an upside down ‘OK’ hand symbol used as a white power symbol in global far-right circles.”
Fare also noted that broadcast directors appeared to stop introducing VAR panels on camera in two subsequent Sunday fixtures — Netherlands vs Japan, and Côte d’Ivoire vs Ecuador — raising further questions about whether television producers were aware of the controversy.
It is worth noting that Evans’s intentions have not been confirmed. An alternative, more innocent reading of the gesture is that he was playing the so-called ‘circle game’ or ‘gotcha’ — a children’s prank involving making the same shape below the waist. When the ADL added the sign to its hate symbol database in 2019, the organisation’s Centre on Extremism director Oren Segal stressed that context remained key to determining whether the gesture was hateful or harmless.
Neither Fifa nor Football Australia had responded to requests for comment at the time of The Guardian’s reporting.
For UK bettors following the tournament closely, this incident adds an off-field talking point to an already eventful opening round. Keep up with all the action via our World Cup 2026 hub and check the latest live standings as the group stage unfolds.