DFB President Bernd Neuendorf has promised the LGBTQI+ community at a meeting to raise their demand for action and legal certainty for travellers to the World Cup in Qatar with FIFA.
“We are not necessarily expecting the best World Cup ever, but certainly the most controversial,” Neuendorf said at the meeting with five community groups on Monday at the DFB campus in Frankfurt am Main. The DFB has always created visibility for the issue of sexual and gender diversity, said Neuendorf, who specifically cited, for example, the “liberalisation of the right to play for trans* and intersex people. “
“It is important that we exchange views, today and in the future,” Neuendorf said, according to a DFB statement on Wednesday. “A clear position of the DFB against any form of discrimination and exclusion is laid down in paragraph 4 of the DFB statutes as the association’s goal.”
Once again to explain: LGBT is the English abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The variants LGBTQ, LGBTQI or LGBTQIA+ are also often used. Each letter stands for one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.
Hitzlsperger: “DFB helps shape social development “
Worldwide, people complain that the LGBTQIA+ community has no rights in Qatar, the host country of the World Cup. Those who make their homosexuality public can be punished with long prison sentences. Under Sharia law, homosexual Muslims in Qatar even face the death penalty. Many organisations advise people from the LGBTIQ+ community and women against travelling to Qatar.
“The exchange was further proof that the DFB is helping to shape social developments,” said former national player and current DFB Ambassador for Diversity Thomas Hitzlsperger. The DFB is offering fan support during the World Cup from 20 November to 18 December.
