The Qatari crackdown on support for the LGBTQ community has extended to credentialed media.
Journalist Grant Wahl, who runs a Substack covering soccer and formerly wrote for Sports Illustrated, tweeted that he was not let into the stadium for Monday’s US-Wales 2022 World Cup match because of his shirt, which had a soccer ball surrounded by a rainbow.
Wahl tweeted that he was told: “You have to change your shirt. It’s not allowed.”
Later in the day, Wahl tweeted an update, saying he was “OK, but that was an unnecessary ordeal.
“Am in the media center, still wearing my shirt. Was detained for nearly half an hour. Go gays,” Wahl wrote.
The implication as to why he was detained is not subtle.
Earlier on Monday, FIFA threatened European team captains with automatic yellow cards for wearing a “OneLove” armband, as they had planned to do, leading England’s Harry Kane to back down and wear a FIFA-sanctioned armband instead.
BBC presenter Alex Scott, who has been in relationships with men and women in the past, donned the armband on the British outlet’s coverage of England’s 6-2 win over Iran.
Amid swirling questions about the Middle Eastern country’s treatment of the issue, early indications are the answers won’t be satisfactory. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and though assurances were given that LGBT fans would be accepted, Qatar seems keen to suppress discussion of the issue.
In a pre-tournament press conference, FIFA president Gianni Infantino gave a bizarre soliloquy attempting to answer the criticism of Qatar, which has an abysmal human rights record including its usage of migrant labor to construct facilities for hosting the World Cup.
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“Today I feel Qatari,” Infantino said. “Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a vagrant. Today I feel a migrant worker.”
Infantino, a white native of Switzerland, is none of those things.
