Long before the World Cup draw last week determined which teams would play where and when, one game was designated as the Pride Match. The game in Seattle on June 26 will go all out with rainbow banners, flags, arts and stories to showcase the L.G.B.T.Q. communities in Washington State.
“With hundreds of thousands of visitors and billions of viewers worldwide, this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment to showcase and celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in Washington,” SeattleFWC26, the organizing committee for the city’s participation in the World Cup 2026 games, says on its website.
Then came the luck of the draw: Iran and Egypt, two countries that criminalize homosexuality and impose severe punishments for it, will be playing the Pride Match. And they have both roundly rejected having any links between their game and the L.G.B.T.Q. events.
The football associations for Iran and Egypt said on Tuesday that they had both written to FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, objecting to the Pride association with their match, demanding that all such events and displays coinciding with the game be canceled and insisting that the match be designated strictly as a sports event.
The Egyptian Football Association said in its letter to FIFA that the Pride Match events “directly conflict with the cultural, religious and social values in the region, particularly in Arab and Islamic societies,” and would “provoke cultural and religious sensitives” of Iranian and Egyptian fans.
Mehdi Taj, the head of Iran’s Football Association, said on state television Tuesday that Iran had also protested the Pride Match designation with FIFA. Iranian news media reported that the country’s team players would not wear rainbow arm bands or display any support for Pride.
“This is an irrational and abnormal thing to do, supporting a specific group,” Mr. Taj said.
He also expressed concerns that the United States may deny visas to players from Iran’s national soccer team and said he had discussed it with FIFA.
The Trump administration has said that World Cup 2026 players and support staff for teams from countries that fall under a new travel ban for 19 mostly African and Middle Eastern nations, including Iran, will be granted visas. But fans will not be able to travel to the United States for the games because of the visa restrictions, the administration said.
Omid Memarian, an Iranian human rights expert and senior fellow at Dawn, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that is focused on U.S. foreign policy, said the idea of Iran’s and Egypt’s national teams playing a Pride Match was “almost surreal because it places some of the world’s most repressive governments on a stage built around openness and equality.”
“The more officials involve themselves in this media frenzy, the more they will harm their own national team,” Mr. Memarian added.
SeattleFWC26 did not immediately respond to requests for a comment. And, so far, Seattle’s planning committee for the World Cup has not yet responded to the objections by Iran and Egypt about the Pride Match. It has invested months of planning into the event, announcing in November the artists whose designs had been selected in a Pride Match Design Contest to be showcased across the city for the event.
Pride Match coincides with the city’s Pride Week and the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York City, the demonstrations that started on June 28, 1969, after a police raid at a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn turned into resistance. It is widely regarded as the spark for the gay rights movement in the United States.
Seattle is one of 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico selected by FIFA to host the 2026 soccer games. Six matches are scheduled to take place in Seattle, drawing teams and fans from the United States, Australia, Belgium, Qatar, Iran, Egypt and the winner of the European playoffs in Group A, which is yet to be determined.
FIFA did not immediately respond to requests for a comment, and it has not commented publicly on the Pride Match controversy.
The soccer body’s ethical codes, specifically Article 4, call for neutrality regarding political and social issues, and players who violate the code could face punishment that includes a ban on playing soccer for up to two years.
During World Cup 2022, FIFA warned players against wearing L.G.B.T.Q. OneLove rainbow armbands that were meant to bring attention to gay rights in Qatar, and it said they would be handed yellow warning cards on the pitch if they wore them.
FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, said then that the participating teams should “let football take center stage.”
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
The post Seattle Plans Pride Match at Soccer World Cup, Infuriating Iran and Egypt appeared first on New York Times.
