On Monday, FIFA announced that it found no evidence indicating that VAR official Shaun Evans intentionally made a racist hand gesture prior to Sunday’s FIFA World Cup match between Germany and Curaçao.
During the official broadcast of Germany’s opening game against Curaçao, a segment featuring video review analysts showed Evans, an Australian, forming an “OK” symbol with his right hand near his leg.
This gesture, where the thumb and forefinger touch to form a circle while other fingers remain extended, has been associated with white supremacy. In 2019, it was declared a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League based in New York.
“FIFA’s independent Disciplinary Committee can confirm that, after reviewing the situation involving video assistant referee Shaun Evans, there is no evidence of violations of the FIFA Disciplinary Code,” the organization stated in a press release on Monday.
Evans firmly denied that the gesture held any racist meaning or was made with intent.
“I want to clarify that I did not purposefully make a hand gesture or symbol to convey any message, association, game, or belief,” Evans expressed in a statement. “The only explanation I can offer is that it was an involuntary, subconscious twitch and I was unaware of it at the time. Images captured later in the match showed that I repeated this motion several times while holding a pen. The coverage around this incident does not reflect who I truly am.”
“I comprehend how the gesture could be interpreted, and I regret that. However, I would like to be unequivocal in saying that I did not knowingly or deliberately perform the gesture in question. Officiating at the World Cup is the greatest honor of my career, and I am eager to support my colleagues for the remainder of the tournament.”
FIFA also took Evans’ statement into account when arriving at its conclusion.
Although the match took place in Houston, video officials operate from a center in Dallas, where Evans was situated at the time the gesture was broadcasted.
Evans is one of 30 video review analysts selected by FIFA to officiate matches during the World Cup taking place in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The “OK” gesture has been appropriated in recent years as a sign of white supremacy, stemming from a hoax on the far-right online forum 4chan.
This sign gained international notoriety in March 2019 during the first court appearance of the white supremacist responsible for the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, which resulted in the deaths of 51 Muslim worshippers.
Later in 2019, when the ADL officially classified the gesture as a hate symbol, Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, emphasized the importance of context in determining the message behind an “OK” symbol.
At that time, Segal stated, “There is enough usage for hateful purposes to merit its classification.”
This report includes contributions from ESPN writer Tom Hamilton and information from the Associated Press.