LIONS WON’T GET ‘MOUTHY’

ENGLAND top brass were worried their clash with Iran could have been stopped if Harry Kane wore the ‘OneLove’ armband.

Boss Gareth Southgate says there will not be any gestures from the Three Lions at the World Cup after the armband row.

There were fears Kane could have been forced to leave the pitch because FIFA wanted to block the use of the anti-discrimination armband.

The FA were angry that the armband was blocked by the governing body while the German FA accused FIFA of “blackmail”.

The FA believe a yellow card for Kane (right) would have been be the minimum sanction and would have been given in the tunnel.

Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark,

Switzerland, Wales and England were set to wear the armbands until they pulled the plug.

Southgate was not involved in the decision making process but was concerned the messaging from FIFA was not clear.

He said: “I don’t know all the ins and outs because I wasn’t in the meeting but there was definitely a feel there were sanctions and not all of those were clear, so the decision was taken out of the hands of Harry.

“The decisions from the organisation were not even putting the armband in the dressing room. There is no discussion, that’s done.”

German players made their own gesture of covering their mouths in the team photo before they lost to Japan. But Southgate insists England will not repeat that.

He said: “There’s a risk that everybody tries to escalate.

“Do we have to come up with a better gesture than Germany did?

“We’ve got to be comfortable with what we stand for. That’s not to say we won’t do anything moving forward if the timing is right.

“At this moment in time, the players and myself especially, we’ve got to be focusing on the game.

“Of course the

FA takes its responsibilities seriously. We’re never going to duck any questions.”