The gesture was made after FIFA banned players from wearing the "OneLove" armband at the World Cup in Qatar.

"Attempting to eradicate discrimination of any kind, including homophobia, from football is something which everyone at The FA believes in strongly and have looked to support for a number of years," the FA said.

Prior to kick-off, FA chief executive Mark Bullingham, speaking to ITV, claimed that FIFA informed England minutes before their 6-2 opening win against Iran that captain Harry Kane would face "unlimited" disciplinary action on top of a yellow card if he wore the armband.

"Its not the way that anyone should work doing things on the day of the game, even the action itself is completely unprecedented for a kit regulation," Bullingham was quoted as saying by ITV.

"There have been kit breaches in the past - we’ve done that with poppies and we had an understanding we would wear the poppies and pay the fine, and we felt that this was a very similar situation to that and should be dealt with in the same way.

"All our rules experts felt the same as well.

"The way they acted was completely unprecedented."

Captains of seven European countries - The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, England and Wales - had planned to wear the armband to support the LGBTQ+ community and promote inclusion.

But world football’s governing body threatened players with a booking, forcing players to withdraw from the decision.

Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and human rights issues have dominated the headlines in the build up to the World Cup.

Two days ago, German footballers covered their mouths during the team photo before their match against Japan to protest FIFA’s threat.

On the same day, Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was spotted wearing the rainbow-coloured armband as she sat next to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.