Forbidden on the biceps of European captains, undesirable at the entrance to certain stadiums, the rainbow is already crystallizing the conflicts of values around the 2022 World Cup, in a Qatar at the heart of global attention, anxious to show its hospitality, but where homosexual relations are a crime.
From FIFA boss Gianni Infantino proclaiming Saturday “today I feel cheerful”, to the renunciation on Monday of the seven selections who wanted to wear an anti-discrimination armband – scalded by the threat of sporting sanctions agitated by this same FIFA -, the tournament is d already punctuated by the question of LGBT+ rights.
Officially, “everyone is welcome”, hammer the football body and the Qatari authorities, ensuring that they can guarantee the safety of each visitor “without discrimination”, while the small emirate represses sexual relations outside marriage, in particular between people. of the same sex.
But the instruction is visibly difficult to pass, several spectators having been ordered to remove rainbow-colored clothes and hats during security checks on Monday evening before the United States-Wales meeting (1 -1).
“Prohibited symbol”
“While we were queuing we heard that people wearing a rainbow bucket hat,” the symbol of Welsh LGBT supporters association Rainbow Wall, “had to take it off,” she told the channel ITV News former captain of the Welsh selection Laura McAllister, who sits among other things on the executive committee of the Welsh federation.
As shown in a silent video posted on Twitter by Rainbow Wall, the ex-captain walked through the control gate with his hat on before an officer and then a security guard pointed him out and, according to her, intimated him. to remove it.
“They said that […] it was a forbidden symbol and that we were not authorized to wear it in the stadium”, explained Laura McAllister, forced to “come out” to deposit the headgear in an area for found objects, and who preferred the slip it into his bag to bring him back into the stadium – “a small moral victory”.
For its part, Rainbow Wall reported in the evening of “Welsh supporters forced to remove” their rainbow hat. “Not the men, just the women. FIFA, ARE YOU SERIOUS!! », Annoys the association, before specifying that the male supporters subsequently received the same instruction.
” Provocation ” ?
“Extremely disappointed”, the Welsh federation “will deal with the subject directly with FIFA” on Tuesday, the organization said. Asked by AFP, neither FIFA nor the Supreme Organizing Committee have yet commented on the incident.
Before the match, American journalist Grant Wahl tweeted that he was detained by security personnel because he was wearing a rainbow t-shirt – “a mistake that was quickly corrected”, according to FIFA.
Just now: Security guard refusing to let me into the stadium for USA-Wales. “You have to change your shirt. It’s not allowed.” pic.twitter.com/TvSGThMYq8
— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) November 21, 2022
The organization displays an acrobatic position on this subject, declaring itself “inclusive” and “supporting the LGBTQI+ community”, while refusing the wearing by the seven captains who so wished of colored armbands bearing the words “One Love” to propose to instead a series of much more consensual messages, such as “Save the planet”, “Education for all” or “No to discrimination”.
“FIFA is a universal organization. We have to find subjects to which everyone adheres,” argued Gianni Infantino on Saturday, believing that “provocation is not the right path” and that gay rights are “a process” that each country follows at its own pace.
UEFA showed the same ambivalence last year at Euro 2020, adorning its logo with a rainbow and proclaiming its commitment to inclusiveness, while banning the Munich stadium from lighting up in the same colors to welcome Hungary and protest against the Hungarian homophobic laws.