We Need Disambiguation About FIFA World Cup Uniform Stars

In the grand scheme of things, the decorations on a team’s jersey are more aesthetic than anything. Still, something popped up at the 2011 Women’s World Cup that perhaps warrants a clear, official ruling. I’m speaking of teams showing stars on their uniform crests to represent FIFA World Cup victories. Some examples from the kits worn by teams participating in the 2011 Women’s World Cup:

In and of itself, this isn’t at all controversial. After all, as of this writing, the German women have won two World Cups (2003, 2007) and have two stars above their crest, the US women have won two World Cups (1991, 1999) and have two stars above their crest, and the Brazilian women have won none and have five…um…wait a second… I think we need to get an official ruling from the FIFA regs:

16.1 Those Member Associations that have won one or more of the previous
editions of the FIFA World Cup™ or the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ may
display on the Playing Equipment used by their first men’s or women’s
representative teams a five-pointed star, or other symbol as instructed by FIFA,
per edition of the FIFA World Cup™ (men’s shirt) or FIFA Women’s World
Cup™ (women’s shirt) won by the Member Association.^[1]

The language of this section is a little convoluted, but basically it seems to say that men’s teams will show the men’s WC wins, and the women’s teams with show the women’s WC wins. Still, the language is awkward and it could easily be interpreted to mean that a senior team could display a star for any and all final winners of either of the World Cup tournaments—which seems to be how Brazil chose to interpret this.

That the German men have won three World Cups (1954, 1974, 1990) and those stars are not included with the women’s victories (and I don’t think any men’s team adds on stars for women’s World Cup victors) strongly implies that the Brazilian federation may have erred by having stars for the men’s World Cup victories displayed on the crests of the women’s kits.

Given the iffy language of the regulation, I don’t think Brazil necessarily did anything without the best intention. What I’d like to see is the language of the regulation cleaned up a bit to clearly eliminate any possible ambiguity of FIFA’s intent. I don’t mind if FIFA is OK having a national federation include the combined victories of both genders, but I do think there needs to be some method of clearly identifying how many wins a specific gender’s team has had. For example, you could have total wins on the crest and team wins on a sleeve. Or you could have team wins be solid stars and the other gender’s wins as outline stars.

The thing is, there is team pride on the line here. Brazil is rightfully proud of the wins its men’s team has brought to the country. Likewise, the US is proud of what the women have done. I’d hate to see national puffery drown out specific accomplishments. World Cup wins are tough to come by. I don’t think any team wants to see some of their thunder unfairly diluted.

¹ – FIFA Laws and Regulations. Equipment Regulations, March 2010, p39 §16.2