Three Lions Pride co-chair say LGBT+ community let down by Fifa and David Beckham

A World Cup should be a celebration, a reward for all that devotion. White successfully applied for Qatar, even securing a golden ticket to the final when, perhaps, Harry Kane might wrap his hands around the most coveted trophy of all.

Yet, with deep regret and more than a little anger, White will not be there. “I had tickets and returned them. It was a difficult choice, very much so,” White says.

As a member of the LGBT+ community, indeed co-chair of Three Lions Pride representing England supporters, White has concluded that it is too risky to travel to a country where sexuality is criminalised - to be made to feel not just unwelcome but in danger.

Mark Bullingham, the FA chief executive, claimed this week that Qatar has confirmed its laws against gay people have been suspended during the World Cup. White, a lawyer, asks reasonably why this news is dribbling out a couple of months before a tournament awarded to Qatar more than a decade ago.

For years, fans groups have peppered Fifa with questions and received only guff and flannel about “football for all” and messages about anti-discrimination plans and promoting equal rights.

“We had conversations with Fifa and the Supreme Committee [the body delivering the tournament] and we weren’t getting any answers, just that lovely, well-used PR line of ‘everyone is welcome’,” White says. “I said ‘that’s nice but we need some details to make sure we feel safe in a country that criminalises us, that can in theory arrest us just for getting off the plane’. And we weren’t getting any.”

So White, after much anguish, will not be attending and nor will any of those among his group. How will it feel when November comes around and Kane leads out the England team? “I can just imagine almost the bitterness of not being there, especially if we are doing well,” White says. “Others are saying they don’t want to watch because they feel they are missing out.”

This is the human context when we throw around generic terms such as diversity and inclusion. This is the impact and justifiable sense of outrage when slogans and gestures are deployed to minimal, or zero, effect.

The latest wheeze, revealed this week, is the armband to be worn by Kane and eight other captains. White is not against the idea if it generates discussion but acknowledges the sense of frustration among those who see it as a hollow gesture.

“A number of people messaged me yesterday saying ‘what the hell is this?’ The armband is not even recognisable as a Pride symbol and the phrase ‘One Love’ is so bland as to be meaningless,” White says. “It is a country that criminalises mine and others’ existence. Subtlety doesn’t work on that. It is doing as little as possible to say you are doing something. Obviously there is a difficult balance for FAs not wanting to criticise Fifa or Qatar.”

But why attempt that balance? Why tiptoe around? Why carefully measure words about Fifa, of all organisations? It is not as if the England team will be thrown out. If they are going to campaign, why not do so with gusto?

It has been by personalising discussion about social issues - poverty, race and depression among them - that England players have come to be seen as so much more than spoilt millionaires. You would think that more than one has a personal reason to care about this issue. White says the FA has given assurances that players, and Gareth Southgate, will engage if they want to.

Solidarity does matter. When White tweeted at Euro 2020, as a trans fan, that a first game in make-up was petrifying, Jordan Henderson replied that “no one should be afraid to support their club or country”. Except in Qatar they are, which seems a necessary debate.

“I still have people coming up to me at England games going ‘how’s Jordan doing, mate?’ It’s bizarre but I do think it gives us a right to be there,” White says. “Jordan has said he’s glad we are there, so general fans are more like ‘keep on going with what you are doing’. It engages with people who might not otherwise, and reaches across boundaries we might not otherwise be able to.”

Those boundaries are shifting. Arsenal Gay Gooners, the first LGBT fan group in the UK, will mark 10 years in February.

“It’s relatively new in the great scheme of things, especially on the international scale, but we are seeing differences,” White says. “I did not go to my first England game until 2015 because I did not feel it was a safe place. I feel far less worried now than I did even three, four years ago. I think we are seen as proper hardcore fans. We are not there just to wave a rainbow.”

White’s ire is much less for England and the FA than it is for Fifa for choosing Qatar as hosts - and for David Beckham, who is reported to have accepted millions to promote all-things Qatari.

“Sell-out,” White says. “It’s the only way I can describe him. You can’t go from doing all the stuff he did in the early Noughties, on the front cover of Attitude talking about LGBT inclusion to taking millions to be the face and legitimising a regime that has awful human rights records. If his reasoning is ‘I’m talking to them about it’ that needs to be public to have any weight.”

Beckham was once a hero for going out on a limb. “That history adds to the pain that is felt by LGBT people in football now,” White adds.

It is a pain that will be felt sharply when the tournament kicks off. White says campaigns will step up, with some fans taking posters, flags and T-shirts to Qatar “saying to Fifa this really isn’t acceptable - you can’t say football is for everyone when it clearly isn’t”.

One demand is for Fifa to have proper equalities stipulations for bidding nations. “They wield that influence. But until that happens, there is no pride in football,” White says.

The issue will recur. How long before Saudi Arabia adds to its expanding sports portfolio by offering to pay whatever it takes for a World Cup or an Olympics?

So this is not just about armbands, slogans and “wokery” but people like Joe White sending back tickets with a sense of anger and hurt.

- The Times

Originally published as Three Lions Pride co-chair say LGBT+ community let down by Fifa and David Beckham