15
votes
Homophobic chants at the US vs Mexico match last night
Link information
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- Title
- Pulisic scores twice as US beats Mexico 3-0 in CONCACAF Nations League
- Published
- Jun 16 2023
- Word count
- 487 words
I missed the game, and by all indications it seems to not have been very enjoyable.
Similar story on BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65925502
But I’m wondering what happened, and who the chants were directed against?
And why in this age of awareness this still persists?
As a USMNT fan, it was quite enjoyable until it started getting too chippy toward the end. Pulisic should have had a hat trick, McKennie was playing very well, and Gio was playing with a huge chip on his shoulder. I was excited to see Balogun play but he didn't do very much, although I figure Mexico was probably marking him and pulled back as soon as they subbed him out for Pepi, hence the very quick goal.
But yeah, the end of the game was trash. For what it's worth, the article says the match was "stopped short" -- sure, but they stopped it 7 minutes into 11 or 12 of stoppage time. The game was over.
Agreed, as US fan, it was a great game until it was out of reach for Mexico and devolved into an effort by the Mexican team to hurt the US chances in the final.
Similar situations are unfortunately a common display in football, largely in Europe. Usually cases of racism against black players. This is the first time I heard of homophobic chants.
From what I've heard, this is a common problem with the Mexican national team's fanbase-- they chant it at basically every match and it's landed them in trouble with FIFA time and time again.
I don't know why it's become such a thing with them in particular (IIRC no other North or South American national team's fanbase does this, although I'm not sure if Ecuador's troubles in that second link were due to homophobic chants or other problematic ones, to be fair), but it's not a first.
I highly doubt that Mexican football fans are any more homophobic than South Americans, but there must be some reason why they feel particularly compeled to chant about it in football matches.
Long-time US soccer fan here. I've read their defense of it many times. They claim that the word has multiple meanings in Spanish and that they're not using it in a homophobic or insulting sense, yet they yell it at opposing players at certain moments of the game. For example, every time the keeper touches the ball in the hopes he'll make a mental mistake. The word literally means gay male sex worker in its most common usage, they're yelling it to get under the skin of opposing players, but it's not meant to be interpreted as a homophobic insult? It's obvious BS.
Mexican here. The word “puto” doesn’t literally mean gay male sex worker, it literally means male sex worker. It does, however, have the gay connotation, so I wish they stopped using it. I know it’s just semantics so I totally agree with you.
Thanks for the clarification. I speak Spanish okay, but of course I have no clue about all the cultural context. I shouldn't have said it "literally" means that because obviously it's contextual. The whole situation is amplified because American society is hyper-sensitive to homophobia, so it comes off as pretty shocking especially because soccer fans in America skew progressive with sections of the crowd waving pride flags at games. We tend to assume the worst, most offensive thing about someone's word choice having become so polarized.
TBH I don't know if people are using the word as an homophobic slur, so assuming the worst is not too far fetched. And don't get me wrong, I think the chant needs to go. But being realistic it seems to me that people are interpreting the punishment as a challenge so they're unfortunately doubling down.
Calling bad stuff "gay" and using the "f-slur" was (and still is, though less so) a pretty common element of shit-talking even in North American English. It is a homophobic insult, but many of the people using it didn't really think of themselves as using it that way. I wouldn't interpret it as them being disingenuous about the homophobia embedded in the term so much as thoughtless/lacking in sensitivity about the impact of its use.
I'm massively generalizing here, but it's also worth mentioning that some countries have a culture of insults as terms of endearment. Everyone doesn't live in the hyper-sensitive culture of the US where we're constantly polarized by racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. I'm not saying a stadium full of people yelling "puto" at opposing players is endearing or the same as Cavani calling a friend "negrito" on social media, but they seem rooted in the same cultural norms where people don't assume the worst about someone's (or their own) word choice. If that makes sense.
I think it's also shocking to an American soccer crowd that skews pretty progressive compared to other American sports. There's an entire section of people flying pride flags at all my local 3rd tier club games, and you see the same at MLS games. A crowd full of people yelling the "f-slur" or even just "bitch" in unison to unsettle opposing athletes seems unthinkable. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of bigots in the crowd at American sporting events don't yell slurs because they fear crowd backlash knowing how sensitive those issues are here. They're at least self-aware to understand that much.
To be fair, the word does have multiple meanings, but after you've been accused of using it as an insult in a clearly homophobic manner and then continue to do so despite knowing very well that everyone around you interprets it as homophobic, you're engaging in homophobia.
Yeah, I'm sort of curious about the backstory to why this became a thing amongst Mexican football fans in particular, but all the coverage about the subject (at least in English language media) is pretty vague, from what I've seen. Might be something that one would need to know Spanish to find out.
Mexican fans have a very long history of engaging in homophobic chants. Many Mexican fans will try and tell you that they're not being homophobic while singing/chanting clearly homophobic slurs. It's a long standing issue.
And, for what it's worth, I'm bilingual and have been for a long time so the "you just don't understand the culture" is not an argument that flies with me.
homophobic chants were just one of the shenanigans the Mexican fans pulled last night. They repeatedly threw beers and drinks into the field then pointed lasers at the US players and the ref.
It was an embarrassment to watch. Mexican fans do better.
They won't do better without consequences I'm afraid. Home games played behind closed doors, full bans from international comps, etc.