England manager Gareth Southgate has said his squad will not be gagged by FIFA’s restriction against speaking about human rights abuse at the World Cup in Qatar.
Qatar is currently facing criticism over its treatment of women and people of the LGBTQ community.
Its treatment of foreign workers who helped build the eight stadiums to host the biggest show in football is also one of the reasons why the Middle Eastern country is in a bad spotlight.
Southgate hails LGBTQ community for England win
Making reference to the impact of gay players on England’s victory in the women’s European Championship earlier this year, Gareth said his squad will not fail to speak up against the abuse they suffer.
“Regarding the LGBTQ community we stand for inclusivity and we’re very strong on that,” said Southgate as he named his 26-man squad for the tournament on Thursday.
“We think that is important in terms of all our supporters and we understand the challenges this tournament brings within that.
“If it wasn’t for the strength of that community we wouldn’t be women’s European champions. It’s very, very important to us.”
In a letter to participating nations last week, FIFA asked for teams to “focus on football” and stop “handing out moral lessons.”
England back LGBTQ
Under Southgate’s stewardship, England have consistently taken a strong stand against racism.
The Three Lions defied boos from their own fans at the start of Euro 2020 to take the knee against racial discrimination.
And Southgate said it was “highly unlikely” they would avoid talking about non-sporting matters during the tournament.
“We have always spoken about issues we think should be talked about, particularly ones we think we can affect,” he added.
“We have spoken in the same way other nations have spoken about this tournament and the human rights challenges. We’ve been very clear with our standpoint on that.
“We would also like to focus primarily on football. For every player, every coach, everybody travelling to a World Cup, this is the carnival of football.
“This is the thing you work for your whole life so you don’t want that to be diminished by everything else that’s going on around it currently. But we recognise that we are going to be in that situation and we’ve got to deal with it.”
