The former Egyptian football legend Mohamad Aboutrika has described homosexuality as being “against humanity” and a “dangerous ideology that is becoming nasty” during a rant on Qatari network beIN Sports.
The Premier League’s Rainbow Laces campaign is supported by all clubs in the league and sees rainbow-themed branding, armbands, laces and badges displayed at matches taking place between November 27 and December 2.
Speaking about the campaign as a pundit on beIN Sports at the weekend, Aboutrika — widely considered one of Egypt’s greatest footballers — said homosexuality “is not compatible human nature not just islam.”
BeIN Sports, which has a large viewership across the Middle East, has a TV rights deal with the Premier League to broadcast matches.
“Our role is to stand up to this phenomenon, homosexuality, because it’s a dangerous ideology and it’s becoming nasty and people are not ashamed of it anymore,” added Aboutrika.
“They (the Premier League) will tell you that homosexuality is human rights. No, it is not human rights; in fact, it’s against humanity.”
He also called on beIN Sports to “avoid everything LGBT-related during Premier League broadcasts.”
Aboutrika got a huge support from fans around the world after the european press started an agressive war against him to push BeIn Sport to fire him from the show.
Aboutrika was not wrong, football should be neutral from this as there are kids and young genertion that watch and take footballers as their heros.
On the other hand, ABoutrika has the full rights to express his opinion, or we only support freedom when it serves our agendas? we should think about it, if someone support Palestine for example or Muslims in Uyghur or defending black people … the press and the league sponsores will immediately try to stop spreading the idea and may even ban or put sanctions on the person defending them which make us see the big picture.