Germany’s football federation has said it plans legal steps against Fifa over its banning of OneLove rainbow armbands at the World Cup as it faced the humiliating decision by one of the country’s largest supermarket chains to cut its commercial ties over the row.

The DFB refused to let players in Qatar wear the armbands promoting diversity and inclusion after threats from the world football governing body to issue yellow cards to team captains, but faced a swift reaction, including from the supermarket chain REWE, which became the first sponsor to take direct action as it said it would drop its advertising campaign in protest at the decision.

The DFB’s spokesperson, Stefan Simon, confirmed to the tabloid Bild that it had lodged a case over legal validity of the decision at the international sport court, CAS, in Lausanne...

Simon said the DFB hoped to overturn the ban by the time of Germany’s second match against Spain on Sunday, re-establishing its captain Manuel Neuer’s right to wear the OneLove symbol without facing penalties.

REWE in a statement before the DFB announced its legal action said it wanted to unambiguously distance itself from the position taken by Fifa and the statement made by its president, Gianni Infantino, at the weekend where he accused the west of “hypocrisy” in its reporting about Qatar’s human rights record...

The telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom said on Tuesday it was planning to talk to the DFB, though did not say what action it might be prepared to take. Volkswagen, Adidas, Lufthansa and Commerzbank, the DFB’s other commercial partners, are also under pressure to react...