Direct products of free groups and free idempotent generated semigroups over bands

Abstract: For each group G which decomposes into a finitary direct product of free groups of finite rank we construct a regular band B such that the free idempotent generated semigroup over B contains a maximal subgroup isomorphic to G. In particular, there exists a (regular) band B_0 with the property that any idempotent generated semigroup whose biordered set is isomorphic to that of B_0 must have all its subgroups abelian.