It’s quite a big day for LGBTQ+ news in sport what with the ground-breaking coming out of NFL player Carl Nassib.
Non-American football, or football as many call it, has long been endeavouring to clean up homophobia in the sport and participants seem even more intent on continuing this during the current Euro 2020 competition.
After a request from Dieter Reiter, the Mayor of Munich, UEFA have rejected his plan to light up the Allianz Arena (pictured above) in rainbow colours for the match between Germany V Hungary on Wednesday.
The governing body rejected the request as it believes it is directly political due to the recent anti-LGBT legislation in Hungary and there have even been reports of anti-LGBT banners up in Budapest during the competition.
UEFA said that the mayor’s reason for the request was a response to legislation (passed almost unanimously by the far-right government) in Hungary banning gay people from appearing in school educational materials or even in programmes for under-18s.
German captain Manuel Neuer will be allowed to wear his rainbow captains armband but some are calling for the stadium to do it anyway – which would definitely be worth watching, whether you’re into football or not.
I hope the city of Munich simply ignores this and lights up the Allianz Arena in rainbow colors anyways. #Pride2021 https://t.co/piNgNp42vD
— Manuel Veth (@ManuelVeth) June 21, 2021