Discrimination
Gay Rights Group Brings Awareness of Homophobia in European Football
By Dylan Vox

Mar 17, 2008

This summer, Austria and Switzerland will play host to the 13th quadrennial European Football Championships where teams from all over Europe will come to compete for the top prize in soccer. This week, the gay rights group QWIEN announced that they would be placing gay positive posters around the city in order to bring awareness to homophobia in the sport.  

The organization opened up their website to poster submissions from the public, and the 50 best posters will be displayed around Vienna during the tournament.  

On their website, QWIEN explains “Football is the last bastion, where the clichés about "real men" can be lived out, on the field as well in the fan sections. Bad play is termed "feminine", and feminine behaviour is not welcome, is put down, segregated, and this form of behaviour leads to sexism and homophobia.”  

With the absence of any openly gay people among the over 500 professional soccer players, the group speculates that homophobia has kept many of the athletes in the closet. "By issuing a Europe-wide poster competition we are making an otherwise taboo topic public during the period of Euro 2008,” the organization explains.  

Österreich am Ball is the institution responsible for the official cultural program at the event and has thus far rejected the organizations plans to showcase the artwork at the official tournament exhibition. The QWIEN has taken upon itself the task of displaying the message around the city.  

The posters will be displayed until the Rainbow Parade gay pride event, which takes place in July.