Watch: Homophobic Chants, Banners Briefly Halt Soccer Game in France
Some soccer fans might have seen Belgium, and they might have seen France — but they didn't see any play on the field for about ten minutes on August 28, thanks to anti-gay chants.
A referee briefly halted a soccer match in Nice, France, between the home team and visiting opponents from Marseilles because fans unfurled homophobic banners in the stands and struck up anti-LGBTQ chants, Yahoo News reports.
The game was 28 minutes into the first half when the refs had players from both teams leave the field after telling the fans repeatedly to stop hurling anti-gay abuse, media reports said. Among the chants was one in which unruly fans cried out, "Marseille are a bunch of queers," Yahoo News reported.
Fans also presented abusive banners, one of which reportedly referred to the Marseille team as "an LGBT club."
Another banner claimed that the arena was being made "gay" by having more areas partitioned off, while a third used a French slang word for gay to insult the owner of the Nice team, a CNN report said.
The badly-behaved fans evidently had not learned the lessons of other recent matches that were halted due to homophobic abuse from the stands, such as what happened during a match between Nancy and Le Mans on August 16. Yahoo News noted that referees in France had been instructed to stop games if fans started hurling anti-LGBTQ abuse.
The BBC reported that fans in Monaco set aside their homophobic conduct when a referee warned that the game would be suspended unless they stopped.
The manager for Nice, Patrick Viera, told the press that the referee "was right to stop the match" when fans refused to stop. "These things are unacceptable," Viera added, going on to say, "I hope that this won't happen again, in Nice or in any stadium."
French governmental official Marlene Schiappa, who oversees national policies on gender equality, took to Twitter to offer her own praise, the CNN story said.
"Congratulations to referee Clement Turpin," Schiappa sent out, "whose commitment to respect for football is known to have interrupted the match #OGCNOM #NiceOM, despite the fact that, despite several withdrawal requests, a homophobic banner dirtied the stands."
Added Schiappa, "Football is a matter of passion not hate."
The BBC story noted that the game was 0-0 at the time of the 10-minute suspension of play. The Associated Press reported that Marseille went on to win the match 2-1.