Taking to social media, the Italian man who ran onto a Work Cup pitch carrying a rainbow-coloured flag and wearing a T-Shirt calling for support for Ukraine and Iranian women explained his motives.
35-year-old Mario Ferri, who calls himself the Falcon, interrupted the Portugal-Uruguay match on Monday donning a Superman shirt with the words pace (peace in Italian) written on it.
Calling himself a ‘modern pirate’, he highlighted the three issues he wanted to specify during his World Cup stunt. One of them was of course FIFA’s banning of the rainbow captain’s armbands.
‘FIFA banned rainbow captain’s armbands and human rights flags in the stands. They blocked everyone, BUT NOT ME’ he explained. ‘Like Robin Hood’.
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He also revealed that he spent a month in Kyiv, Ukraine as a volunteer and saw how much people are suffering. He also said he had plenty of friends from Iran who are women who face disrespect.
‘Infringing on rules is never a crime if you do it for a good cause’ he said. ‘Thank you all for the messages of love sent from all over the world, Iran and Ukraine.’
It was revealed by the Italian foreign ministry that Ferri had been briefly detained following the pitch invasion before being released without any consequences. This isn’t the first time Ferri had done such a stunt.
In 2010, he invaded the World Cup pitch in Abu Dhabi and in 2014 in Brazil. In Brazil, his t-shirt read ‘save the children of the favelas, the slums of Brazilian cities.
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