{"id":173839,"date":"2025-12-08T10:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/173839\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T10:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:42:07","slug":"2026-world-cup-pride-match-to-feature-egypt-and-iran-where-homosexuality-is-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/173839\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Cup: ‘Pride Match’ to feature Egypt and Iran – where homosexuality is illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The event – which is organised solely by the local committee and is not affiliated with Fifa – will take place on the Friday of Seattle’s official Pride weekend, with artists in Washington state invited to submit designs of artwork, external<\/a> celebrating LGBTQ+ people for display around the game and city.<\/p>\n

The Seattle Pride Match Advisory Committee, set up by organisers to help with the event, say the game will still go ahead as planned.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson told LGBT news outlet Outsports:, external<\/a> “The Pride Match has been scheduled to celebrate and elevate Pride events in Seattle and across the country, and it was planned well in advance.<\/p>\n

“Soccer has a unique power to unite people across borders, cultures, and beliefs. We are honoured to host a Pride Match and to celebrate Pride as part of a global football community. <\/p>\n

“This match reflects our ongoing commitment to respect, dignity, and unity for all.”<\/p>\n

It is not the first time an attempted gesture of support for LGBTQ+ people at the World Cup has run into issues.<\/p>\n

At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – which also has laws against same-sex relationships<\/a> – Fifa said players that wore the OneLove armband in support of LGBTQ+ people would receive yellow cards. <\/p>\n

England and Wales were among the teams who had planned to wear the band, but decided against it<\/a> following Fifa’s ruling.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport has contacted Fifa, the Seattle organising committee and the Egyptian and Iranian Football Associations for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The event – which is organised solely by the local committee and is not affiliated with Fifa –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-173839","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}