Football shirts are probably the most expensive advertising space in the world. Companies pay tens of millions to have their logo on a few square centimeters of textile. The jerseys of national teams alone must be free of advertising, the players should represent their country - and nothing else and nobody. This is what the rules of the world football association Fifa want.

A few weeks before the start of the soccer World Cup in Qatar, which begins on November 20, a dispute has broken out as to whether the neutrality requirement must be interpreted strictly or whether jerseys should not be allowed to be a platform for messages.

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