GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Guadalajara is the capital of a Mexican state where tequila and Mariachi music is played. It is also considered the birthplace of a less flattering tradition: a homophobic football chant that has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the past two decades.
It’s not a wild guess that the chant, a one-word slur that literally means male prostitute in Spanish, will be heard by the crowd at Akron Stadium in Guadalajara when Mexico hosts the United States in a friendly match on Tuesday.
Multiple FIFA sanctions and campaigns by Mexican soccer officials to educate fans have failed to stamp this out. The chant persists in both club and national team football in Mexico, not least in matches between the two North American rivals who will jointly host the 2026 World Cup with Canada.
The last time the U.S. men’s national team played Mexico, in the CONCACAF Nations League final in Texas in March, the referee said The match was stopped twice due to homophobic chanting from Mexican fans. Last year there was a match in Las Vegas between the two sides cut short for the same reason.
In Guadalajara, a city with a strong soccer tradition that has two teams in Mexico’s top soccer league and another two in the second division, many local fans told The Associated Press that they considered the chant harmless and intended only to promote to ridicule opponent. plowing.
“Football is still a party and the singing is just for fun. People who shout it do not mean to insult the rival,” said Luis Gallardo, a 38-year-old wearing the black away shirt of the Mexican national team. “It’s been going on for years and I don’t think it’s going to change.”
The slur, typically used when the opposing goalkeeper takes a goal kick, is hardly the only offensive chant heard in football stadiums around the world, but its continued use at international tournaments has become a costly embarrassment for Mexico’s football federation.
The federation has been fined numerous times by FIFA for “discriminatory behavior” by supporters, including 100,000 Swiss francs ($114,000) for two incidents during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Mexico has appealed these sentences.
Mexico’s soccer federation has long argued that the chant was not directed against gays and that the word had a different connotation in contemporary Mexican culture. However, in recent years the federation has launched campaigns to make this go away, with stadium announcers urging crowds to refrain from discriminatory chants and enlisting the help of football stars and other celebrities to get the message across.
In 2022, the federation threatened fans who shouted the slur during matches with stadium ban of five years. At the time, then-president of the federation Yon de Luisa said regardless of the intention of those who used the slur, what matters is how it is received by others.
“If it is discriminatory, we must avoid it,” said De Luisa, who later resigned after Mexico’s poor performance in Qatar, where the team was eliminated in the group stage.
The origins of the chant are somewhat unclear, but it can be traced back to a 2004 Olympic qualifying match between Mexico and the US in Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco. It then spread to stadiums across Mexico with fans of Guadalajara football club Atlas.
Francisco Acuña, a 55-year-old Atlas fan, said the chant was a way for fans to express emotions during the match and should not be taken too seriously.
“The people who know football know that the game is intense and even players get hot-headed on the field and hug each other at the end of the match,” he said.
Alejandro Oliva, a 40-year-old soccer fan from central Guadalajara, said he didn’t understand why some people find the chant offensive.
“I’m surprised that people outside Mexico believe it’s a homophobic chant. In Mexico it is normal and it does not offend anyone,” he said. “I think even people from the gay community use the word and they’re not aggravated by it.”
Not everyone sees it that way.
“It is clearly homophobic because you humiliate someone with an insult of sexual and negative connotation,” said Andoni Bello, an LGBTQ+ activist and outspoken critic of the chant who played for Mexico in amateur football tournaments organized by the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association.
He said Mexico should drop the chant before the 2026 World Cup, when the eyes of the world will be on the country. Mexico will host thirteen World Cup matches, including four in Guadalajara.
Bello urged tournament organizers to reach out to the LGBTQ+ community for help in addressing the issue.
“It’s not just about taking pictures of them and saying they are against homophobia in the stadiums,” he said. “There is a real opportunity to educate the Mexican fan. At the ’86 World Cup we were world famous for the ‘Mexican wave’. We exported a good party, let’s hope to eradicate the singing because to be known for its homophobia is very sad.”
___
AP football: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer