Fifa disciplinary committee chairman Claudio Sulser said ..."In the stadium and on the pitch, there is only room for sport, nothing else."

Presumably that means that FIFA has now decided to remove all advertising from its competitions, then.

Afraid they're just a bit dense, aren't they? It's yet another case of a public body listening to the debate and then thinking exactly what they thought in the first place, regardless.

The fines are for piddling amounts.

It'll be interesting to see what happens the next time England play an international on Remembrance Day. My guess is the FA will be very careful to give it a wide berth for future fixtures.

Hopefully the FA just say in future they will match any fine and give it to the Royal Legion or other charity etc.

Hopefully everyone walks away from FIFA and start an organisation that works for the good of the sport.

They are just a bunch of old farts, just tell em to FUCK OFF!

So why aren't Pools fined for wearing their 'Poppy Shirts' ?

Because the games FIFA or UEFA games they are under the jurisdiction of our FA.

I'd argue to the death that poppies are not political but the FA have enough money to pay Sepp Blatter's pension contributions.

Choose Life.

Trainspotters 2 opens on 27th January!

Er, what 'more important stuff' ? It's football. It's not that important, the line of thought behind the poppy is.

'An unseemly argument over a non issue'.... .Oh dear. That disappoints me.

From today's Guardian:

"During the row, it also came to widespread attention that the Republic of Ireland had worn shirts commemorating the Easter Rising in a friendly against Switzerland in March, with FIFA having now belatedly imposed a 5,000 Swiss francs (£3,923) fine on the Football Association of Ireland."

Funny that, the FAI not getting their players to wear poppies, even though 35,000 Irishmen died serving in the British Army in World War One.

Maybe the Irish think the poppy is a political symbol?

And maybe we think commemorating the Easter Rising on a football shirt is a bit, you know, political too?

Agree with Mad John, we knew it was coming so no idea what the fuss is, piddly amount too.

Hardly a deterrent to not do it again.

You could argue that the very fact of one country’s having four teams is political.

FIFA fines are generally pathetic amounts, like when the old Spain manager made racial comments about Henry. I'm sure his fine was in the hundreds.

To be fair FIFA make their money through selling competitions to rich nations not from pointless fines.

The question is do they have an escalating scale for repeat offenders?

Just hescalating salaries for the hierarchy.