John Amaechi on Sepp Blatter

An extract from FGG Ambassador John Amaechi's post on his Dear John blog on the scandalous statement of FIFA president Sepp Blatter on the choice of homophobic, sexist, racist Qatar as host of the 2022 World Cup:

“I am often accused of overstating the endemic, institutional bigotry within the world of elite team sports. This is yet another case where the epic, archaic, neanderthal, ignorance of someone who wields the power to summon kings, princes, presidents and prime ministers to bid at their pleasure uses that power not to foster positive change but to further entrench bigotry.

The statements and the position adopted by Sepp Blatter and FIFA regarding LGBT fans who would pay the enormous ticket and travel prices to attend the world cup in 2022 should have been wholly unacceptable a decade ago, instead, with little more than an afterthought FIFA has endorsed the marginalisation of LGBT people around the world.

Anything less than a full reversal of his position is unacceptable and if the FA and football and sporting associations around the world fail to acknowledge this insult, they too will be complicit.

If sport can not serve to change society, even temporarily during the duration of an event like the world cup that invites the world to participate, then it is little more than grown men chasing a ball and we should treat it as such."

I have had it very eloquently pointed out - and I should have made this point earlier - that Blatt's words aren't really about sex - as I can't imagine that many gay football fans would be bold enough to do it in public in Qatar. Rather, what Blatt is really saying is "don't be camp... don't hold hands... don't look into each others eyes... don't book rooms with one bed... don't have candle-lit dinners in the restaurant..." and on and on.

He's really saying don't even 'look' gay, re-closet yourself and pretend the ties and love and affection you have for your partner or even some random bloke you might meet on your travels are gone for the whole time you are in Qatar. For the same exorbitant prices for plastic flags and whatever the Qatari equivalent of the vuvuzela is, after already paying bumped-up prices for flights room and board - you get to pretend to be the you you were before you came out and that, as was pointed out to me, makes Blatt's words even more insidious.

Read in full HERE.