players at the foot of a rainbow of moral issues – Liberation

One player at Guingamp, three at Toulouse FC and no chance there won’t be others: Breton defender Donatien Gomis as well as TFC players Moussa Diarra, Saïd Hamulic and Zakaria Aboukhlal refused to wear the jersey the rainbow flocking of the annual campaign “Gay or straight, we all wear the same shirt” that every professional player – Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 – had to wear this weekend (1). The players’ employers have “taken note“(Guingamp) or have shown themselves “respectful of individual choices [leurs] players“(a press release from the Haut-Garonne club). Since these four names came out thanks to the work of our colleagues, respectively the Telegram et the Midi Dispatch, it is reasonable to think that other cases have been passed to the ace. Who under cover of a hamstring injury, who justifying gastroenteritis, the latter having served during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons for two Paris-SG players, including midfielder Idrissa Gueye , called in sick that weekend, which justified their exfiltration last summer – Doha is picky about image issues.

Gomis, Diarra, Hamulic and Aboukhlal did not justify their gesture, and after all their silence is respected, the Toulouse club having however spoken of a “disagreement over association of their image with rainbow colors representing the LGBT movement“. This fall, a major player in operations to prevent homophobia in French professional clubs, and particularly among young people, alerted us to the central role of religion, “no matter which(we quote), in this form of discrimination:It does not come into account nine times out of ten, but ten times out of ten“, we heard ourselves say, Gueye having moreover at the time received the support of Senegalese President Macky Sall on behalf of “religious beliefsfrom the current Everton midfielder.

Several lessons to be learned, however. There is no chance that a similar campaign against racism will encounter any such resistance. And even less publicly assumed. It’s an understatement to say there’s something awkward about homosexuality in football, the lack of coming out among top-flight players – with the notable exception of Czech international Jakub Jankto in February – having no chance of being trivial. To speak is to find oneself between the hammer of a possible discrimination and the anvil of a crushing media weight to assume. “Reporting your homosexuality is the last thing an active player should do“, explained to us one day Olivier Rouyer, gay and international tricolor between 1976 and 1981. Second lesson: whatever their motivations, the attitude of the players refusing to endorse the LGBT jersey paradoxically underlines the importance and the ecumenism of the game. favorite of men.

Because he reminds us that football is everyone. Those who live their homosexuality in the shadow of the Ligue 1 locker room (we know some) without, most often, encountering the slightest concern, but also Donatien Gomis. He invited himself to the big table of professional football on a regular basis, on his abilities, like any professional player without distinction of origin, faith or moral or societal sensitivity: if we can find the attitude of a deplorable Gomis or Aboukhlal, we do not see in the name of what we would index the career of a player on criteria other than sports. Even if it means opening up to otherness.

Especially since football already has that meaning. A few years ago, a Malian international born in France explained to us the tautological aspect of a League initiative pushing players to display a message against racism during a weekend: “A football shirt already has that meaning. Everywhere and all the time.The game is an open space. That is to say, contradictory. Progressive and reactionary, edifying and anecdotal, inclusive and discriminatory. A space of conflict, therefore. What the initiatives of Hamulic or Diarra have the merit, albeit relative, of recalling. But who could ever believe that football was outside the world?

(1) These are then sold at auction for the benefit of the associations Foot Ensemble, PanamBoyz&Girlz United and SOS Homophobia.