The Brazilians, who won the Federation Cup in South Africa in June, have been singled out not because they said anything untoward, rather because they displayed T-shirts which read "I belong to Jesus' and 'I love God'. The incident is reported in more detail by Michael Ireland, writing for the Assist News Service.
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2009/s09070110.htm
Australian Baptist minister and cricket chaplain of 25 years, Mark Tronson, says that although FIFA officials have called for religion to be kept out of football, it seems that only one kind of religious expression is being called to account. The Egyptian soccer team since 2006 has sported and shouted (2009 Federation Cup) religious advertising.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/11/article03.shtml
"The research I have undertaken over 27 years into the history of Christian faith and Sport indicates that there have always been players who have enthusiastically expressed their following of Jesus," M V Tronson explained.
"For more than thirty years, South American football stars have expressed their Christian faith overtly. The Brazilians for example, have taken a chaplain with them for as long as I can recall," Mark Tronson added. "The chaplain was always an unashamed preacher of the Cross and Jesus Salvation."
M V Tronson pioneered the Sports and Leisure Ministry in 1982 placing Christian chaplains in Australia's professional sports and has undertaken numerous study tours and spoken at international sports ministry seminars around the world.
In 2000 Heads of Churches released Mark and his wife Delma after 18 years so as to initiate Well-Being Australia which primarily focus on athlete respite with two facilities, Basil Sellers Moruya and Basil Sellers Tweed, for AIS athletes and coaches, along with the cricket fraternity.
"It's a bit rich for the FIFA to whine over wholesome Christian young men bringing such a positive life enriching message," Mark Tronson noted.
"Perhaps FIFA should also look at their advertising policy if they are wanting to eliminate what they might refer as 'negative messages'. They should analyse the posters and advertising banners that are displayed during FIFA matches seen on television screens around the world."
M V Tronson further claims that the issue seems to be that when Christian footballers share the wonderful saving message of Jesus in which the Holy Spirit inevitably challenges the heart, a 'foul' is called.
"As religious messages are seen to a world wide audience I would have thought that FIFA would have been equally concerned for 'negative messages' in advertising as millions of dollars are made by television companies who show soccer matches."