Down will come Rodin’sThe Thinker,up will go the eyebrows. Head bowed,heavy with virtue. “Today I feel … Indigenous. Today I feel … zero hunger. Today I feel … education for all. Today I feel … inclusion.”
Feeling gay.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino during his infamous 50-minute manifesto at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.AP
In Qatar last November,the FIFA president delivered a bizarre 50-minute monologue stating he felt “gay”,“Qatari”,“Arab”,“disabled” and “a migrant worker”. Soon after that,he decidedly felt a bit less “gay”,making it clear that captains of seven European countries would receive yellow cards if they wore the “OneLove” rainbow armband during games as planned.
England skipper Harry Kane instead walked out to play Iran wearing a black FIFA-sanctioned “no discrimination” armband.
The hypocrisy of the world governing body was multilayered,but the essence was of an organisation systematically banning anti-discrimination statements,in a manner directly contradicting its own anti-discrimination statutes,in a country where being gay is illegal.
The armbands FIFA says team captains will be permitted to wear during the 2023 Women’s World Cup.FIFA
Seven months later,at the Women’s World Cup,the posturing has taken a slightly different turn. Infantino has listened to the people. The people wanted armbands,and he has delivered no fewer than eight. In quintessentially opaque FIFA terms,they are designed to “unite”,emblazoned with ill-defined terms on ill-defined colours.
Captains now have more choice than a smorgasbord of dust,able to pick from:“Unite for Indigenous peoples” (red),“unite for gender equality” (purple),“unite for peace” (blue),“unite for education for all” (orange),“unite for zero hunger” (orange),“unite for ending violence against women” (blue) and “football is joy,peace,love,passion” (purple).
The eighth,“unite for inclusion”,most resembles the “OneLove” armband,featuring a heart of the same colours – red,black,green,pink,yellow and blue – on a white background. Is this progress? It depends whether one defines progress as a thinned-out adaptation of a “OneLove” armband that is not even,in itself,a true reflection of the LGBTQ+ rainbow colours.
According to LGBTQ+ sports publicationOutsports, 87 out LGBTQ+ footballers will contest the World Cup – almost 12 per cent of all 736 participants. At the highest level of sport,that is a remarkable number,and one which more accurately represents the general population than perhaps any other major non-LGBTQ+-specific sporting event. That number includes Quinn,the first openly non-binary trans athlete to win an Olympic medal in Tokyo,who will also represent Canada in this tournament.
Sam Kerr wears the Matildas’ Pride jersey during February’s win over Spain in Sydney.Getty
Anecdotally,many of the players are not happy,but it is unclear if any are willing to cop a booking at the most important event of their careers for a specific cause. Sam Kerr,who is openly gay,said she was and would not risk putting her team in jeopardy.
It is also uncertain which teams will choose which “unite” cause to represent. Perhaps a stronger message to FIFA would be to eschew all eight options.
“The players feel like what they’ve been given is,‘Here’s the parameters you can be confined to,and this is as far as we’re going to go’,” says former Matildas player Kate Gill,the co-chief executive of Professional Footballers Australia.
“You have to live within your means essentially,so I feel like they don’t really have a choice in the matter. It’s FIFA effectively shying away from its responsibility.
The Matildas squad have recorded a video calling for better treatment of women's footballers around the world.
“The biggest statement from a player would be to not wear any,just wear the generic[captain’s] armband to say,‘These don’t sit with me in any way,shape or form. You can’t tell me how I want to think or feel’.”
Sarah Gregorius,a former New Zealand international and director of global policy and strategic relations at global players union FIFPRO,thought FIFA sanctioning political statements was a sensible solution given the geographic breadth of the teams.
“You’ve got players who might feel something individually,but know because of their cultural context that that’s going to be a particularly dangerous stance to take,” she told Reuters. “So it’s difficult to say,‘This is the position on behalf of all 32 captains of all 32 national teams’.”
FIFA has made one significant departure from the norm, to be displayed at all stadia for every match in both Australia and New Zealand for the first time at a World Cup.
But the timing of the armbands announcement – three weeks before the tournament starts – has also left players and their federations with little room for movement or renegotiation. The parameters have been set. The edict directed from Zurich. These are the issues you care about,so here is a diluted version we could probably explain away to our friends in Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The consultation process has been another interesting element. CEO James Johnson says Football Australia was at the table,along with other countries including England,Sweden and the Netherlands.
He did not feel that the “outcome was already defined” from the outset,adding “there was definitely improvement” from FIFA between the start and end of the discussions and it “landed in a place that is acceptable” – with a caveat.
“We welcome the framework FIFA put in place because it’s broad and allows players to select an issue they care about,” Johnson said. “On the other hand,though,we do acknowledge they didn’t go as far[as we’d like] and specifically focus on LGBTQI.
“Our voice in the process was heard,as was that of our players. We were always aligned with our players,and would have liked to have seen it go a bit further. But we do have to recognise that there was movement made since the last World Cup and we welcome that.”
Johnson understands a certain amount of public diplomacy is required between the federation of a host nation and FIFA,but even he couldn’t stomach the veto of the rainbow Pride Flag colours that were etched into the Matildas’ jersey numbers for their February Cup of Nations match against Spain.
When it was announced,FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura praised the agreement. “Thank you to the players and the teams for sharing your support for these causes,” Samoura said. “United,we can make a difference.”
For sure – if you like your social causes watered down to almost nothing.
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