FIFA has expressed regret after its video launching the logo for the 2018 World Cup showed Crimea as part of Russia, the Guardian reports.
The video, broadcast as the logo was beamed on to Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre on Tuesday, included a map of the host nation Russia, including Crimea.
The clip was commissioned by Russia’s World Cup organising committee from a “local creative agency” and has now been edited to remove the “short sequence in question”, FIFA said.
The original video has been removed from FIFA’s YouTube channel and replaced with an edited version excluding the two-second sequence in which the map of Russia was shown.
The film was part of a light show used to display the World Cup 2018 emblem on the Bolshoi theatre after it was unveiled by Russian cosmonauts on national TV.
