FIFA Investigates Claims That Nigera Banned Lesbians From Playing Soccer

Members of Nigeria's women's national soccer team

The Nigerian Football Federation has officially banned lesbians from participating in competition in the country, the chair of the Nigeria Women’s Football League announced Thursday. The move has drawn an inquiry from FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, since such a ban would violate its anti-discrimination policy.

Nigeria is one of several African countries that have moved to legally ban homosexuality, and Nigerian club officials have boasted of driving lesbians from the game before, but under the new policy, lesbian players will be disqualified from competition and won’t be allowed to join the national team, NWFL chair Dilichukwu Onyedinma said, according to Inside World Football:

“Any player that we find is associated with it will be disqualified.

“We will call the club chairmen to control their players, and such players will not be able to play for the national team,” said Onyedinma. She said the governing body will work with clubs to stop the practice.”

While outright bans on lesbians are obviously (and thankfully) rare, discrimination aimed at gay female athletes is hardly limited to soccer or to Nigeria. The push for LGBT equality in sports has largely focused on men while gay women athletes get ignored, since the stereotypical female athlete is often already presumed to be gay. As Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky wrote when American soccer star Megan Rapinoe came out ahead of the 2012 Olympics, “An openly gay female athlete almost isn’t news. A lesbian in the locker room conforms to a stereotype, just as a straight male athlete is a stereotype.”

But in both American and international sports, there is “an amazing division between lesbians and straight women in sports” that persists because straight women don’t want to be stereotyped as gay, Dr. Pat Griffin, a professor and advocate for LGBT rights in sports, has said before. That has led to discrimination against female athletes who actually are gay and a culture, particularly in American college sports, where both coaches and players are expected to “be straight, or at the very least, act straight.” It’s no wonder then, that many lesbian athletes wait until their careers are over to come out of the closet.

So while Nigeria’s ban is uniquely horrific, and while FIFA will hopefully help put an end to it, it is emblematic of a larger sports culture that remains tilted against LGBT equality not just for men but for women too.

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Mario Balotelli And The ‘Lost War’ Against Racism In Soccer

Last week, AC Milan signed one of the world’s premier soccer players in Mario Balotelli, who called it a dream come true that he was joining Italy’s most prominent soccer club. A week later, that dream isn’t as beautiful. Not after an Italian news station caught Paolo Berlusconi, an AC Milan vice president and the younger brother of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, calling Balotelli “negretto della famiglia,” which translates roughly to “the family’s little n—–.”

Balotelli, a black Italian, is no stranger to racism. During previous stints in Italy and at international club matches, fans have greeted him with monkey chants and bananas. Fans of one club banded together to tell him that “there are no black Italians.” But while Balotelli may be subject to the worst of racism, the kind that comes from his own countrymen and his own club, he’s hardly alone. Here’s a far-from-comprehensive timeline of racism in European soccer — just over the past month:

January 3: AC Milan’s Kevin Prince-Boateng, a Ghanaian, responds to racist chants from opposing fans by picking up the ball, punting it into the stands, and walking off the pitch. His teammates and opponents followed, and the match was called. Earlier in the game, fans assaulted Sulley Muntari, another Ghanaian, with monkey chants. “It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve heard these things, but I’m 25 now and I’ve had enough this bullshit,” Prince-Boateng, who threatened to walk off the field in future matches, said after the game.

January 29: Jozy Altidore, an African-American, faces monkey chants from fans of Dutch club FC Den Bosch during a club match in the Netherlands. Altidore shrugged off the chants, refused efforts from officials to stop the match, and played on. “It’s only going to make them stronger if we back down,” Altidore said afterward. “I just want to get on with it and play and win the game.” AZ Alkmaar, Altidore’s club, wins 5-0.

January 30: Barcelona’s Dani Alves, a black Brazilian, is the subject of racist chants in a Spanish cup match against rival Real Madrid. In a moment of brutal truth, a dejected Alves declares after the match that soccer’s long fight against racism is “a lost war.”

January 30: European soccer’s governing body fines three clubs — Italian club Lazio, English club Tottenham Hotspur, and Slovenian club NK Maribor, for fans’ racist and anti-Semitic chants during games in November. Lazio’s sanctions include one home game played behind closed doors with no fans in attendance.

January 31: Japanese player Yuki Nakamura quits his Slovakian club because of repeated racial abuse. Nakamura was frustrated because his teammates and club officials did little to protect or defend him.

February 5: FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, upholds sanctions against both Bulgaria and Hungary’s international teams for racist chants during World Cup qualifying matches. Both are forced to play one match behind closed doors, and FIFA warns that further incidents could result in expulsion from Cup qualifying.

In England, the Football Association has taken steps to combat racism that have been more aggressive than those in other countries. The FA suspended Luis Suarez for eight matches for racist taunts directed at Patrice Evra, who is Senegalese. It has banned fans from matches for racist taunts and levied heavy fines and sanctions against clubs whose fans exhibit racist behavior. John Terry, the English national team’s former captain, was charged with a crime for racial remarks he made in the course of play (he was found not guilty). Complaints have still arisen from black players like Rio Ferdinand, and racism still rears its ugly face far too often. But England’s serious and aggressive response seems to have thwarted much of the overt racism from fans that was once a daily feature of its matches, even if it hasn’t eliminated racism altogether.

England is hardly a total success story, but it has at least been successful enough to drive the perception among abused players that it should be a model for FIFA and other domestic federations to follow. FIFA and other governing bodies have long held the position that players who respond to racist taunts are the ones deserving of serious punishment, while the perpetrating fans and clubs receive only slaps on the wrist. That needs to change. There’s no reason that players like Prince-Boateng should have to threaten to continue walking off the field, that players like Nakamura should have to quit their clubs, that players like Altidore and Alves should be reduced to pretending they can’t hear the chants or to accepting that racism is a feature of the game they play. That they have should be viewed as no less than a tragedy, and one that’s worth addressing with more than t-shirts and advertising campaigns. If the war against racism in soccer is lost, it’s only because there’s been no serious effort to fight it.

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