“I am proof that there are gay footballers,” says Ouissem Belgacem, honorary co-president of Fierté Montréal this year with Sasha Colby. “It was a big yes from the beginning, without hesitation, because the values that the festival defends are important for Quebec, for Canada, for the entire world,” explains the Franco-Tunisian. In fact, the event corresponds to the projects that the athlete has been carrying forward since he gave up his career as a professional player due to the corrosive homophobia in the soccer world.
In addition to the activities he is invited to participate in with his co-president’s cap, Ouissem Belgacem will present two songs from his upcoming first album, which he is preparing with French singer-songwriter Camélia Jordana, during Pride. On the stage of the Olympic Park esplanade on August 8, he will sing I am at peacebut also If I loved womenan unreleased track offered exclusively to the Montreal public. “I wanted, through this song, to say how different my life would have been if I had not been homosexual, because without it seeming like it, we grow up in very heteronormative societies and if you are part of a minority, it is complicated for you,” he emphasizes.
“I don’t make music just for the sake of making music: for me, it’s another way of expressing myself,” adds the soccer player, who is also the author of two books about his coming out, Goodbye my shameautobiographical story prize in the Gay Novel Prize in 2021 and adapted into a documentary series in 2023, and YammaWhether it is literature, television or music, each text he signs bears witness to his commitment to the fight against homophobia in the world of soccer.
To the point
Before touching down on the other side of the Atlantic, Ouissem Belgacem will perform on Thursday 1er August in Paris as part of the Pride House Olympic Games, a festive and inclusive space for LGBTQ+ people and their allies. “I am happy to participate in events that, during the Olympics, defend an open-mindedness in which I believe,” he adds. In this regard, he praises the audacity and innovative nature of the opening ceremony on July 26, which was quickly decried by the most conservative souls around the world, Donald Trump at the forefront. “I want to say that it is always good news when we do things that do not please the right and the extreme right,” confides the footballer.
I thought maybe it was France and Tunisia that were very homophobic, but when I arrived in the United States and heard the same speeches in the locker room, I quickly understood that homophobia, just like misogyny, is not linked to a club or a country. It is everywhere.
Although he is pleased with the visibility given to diversity during the opening ceremony, he believes that more needs to be done to change mentalities. “If there is no real awareness, training and education programme behind it, it will not suddenly raise awareness,” says Ouissem Belgacem, who did not wait for the Olympics to carry out in-depth work by speaking out on the ground whenever he had the opportunity. “It was a great showcase and I think that artistic director Thomas Joly did an exceptional job, but we should not claim victory because what remains to be done to cure the world of homophobia is enormous,” he warns.
When asked about the creation of a queer soccer league in Montreal in 2022 following a homophobic attack, the athlete is not surprised. Having led a high-level soccer career for about ten years in Europe, Africa and North America, Ouissem Belgacem knows how strong the injunction to be heterosexual in soccer, whether amateur or professional, is. “I thought it was maybe France and Tunisia that were very homophobic, but when I arrived in the United States and heard the same speeches in the locker room, I quickly understood that homophobia, like misogyny, is not linked to a club or a country. It is everywhere,” he says.
It was after becoming disillusioned during his time with the Colorado Rapids that the athlete decided to take early retirement. “What’s sad about my story is that I stopped playing soccer by lying to everyone,” he recalls, while at the time he pretended to be seriously injured rather than making his homosexuality public.
Hatred and homophobia then exploded when he published his first autobiographical novel. “Since the release of Goodbye my shameI am still very exposed in the media and I have received death threats which are not always easy to digest,” notes Ouissem Belgacem.
“People have understood that you can no longer say ‘dirty Arab’ or ‘dirty Black’ on the field. I would like people to understand that it’s the same with ‘dirty faggot’,” Ouissem Belgacem now hopes. For him, Canada may have a role to play at an international level. “I have the impression that you already know that inclusion is a matter of life and death,” he concludes.
Follow Ouissem Belgacem during Montreal Pride 2024
I don’t make music just to make music Ouissem Belgacem »