You have to admire their bravery, don’t you? The stoicism with which they put up a fight in the name of principle and decency. The England football manager, Gareth Southgate, and his similarly equine captain, Harry Kane, had pledged that the latter would wear, throughout England’s World Cup campaign, a rainbow ‘One Love’ armband to show the team’s support for the LGBTQI community, despite objections from football’s governing body, Fifa. Nothing could stop them from displaying to the world their deep discomfort at the fact that the World Cup was being played in a place where homosexuality was illegal.
And then, when Fifa announced that anyone wearing the armband would be booked and the team fined, Mr Southgate made the following announcement: ‘As you know, it was our intention for the team captain to wear a rainbow One Love armband to show our deep commitment to the cause of inclusivity and LGBTQI rights in Qatar and indeed the wider world. But, important though this issue is, we cannot afford for our lantern-jawed captain to miss any games. So for the time being, it’s a case of sod the homos.’
OK, he didn’t quite say that. But that was the gist – and there was no armband in sight when Kane took to the field for the opening game against the liberal gay-loving democrats of Iran. As a principled stand against oppression it’s not quite the Tolpuddle Martyrs, is it? Imagine if it had been Gareth on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama, all those years ago:
‘If you don’t move your seat I’m going to have you arrested.’
‘Oh, OK. Where do you want me to sit, suh?’
‘At the back. And not in that seat over there. That’s reserved for cripples.
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