Mexico fans have chanted gay slur at 2 straight World Cup games

Mexico fans once again chanted a gay slur at the World Cup, in open defiance of FIFA rules and in front of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, during Tuesday’s round of 32 win against Ecuador in Mexico City.

Fans chanted “puto,” a slur that means male prostitute in Spanish and is considered a gay slur, in the first five minutes of the game on a goal kick from Ecuador goalie Hernán Galíndez. The slur is always used when the opposing goalkeeper is taking a kick.

It was the second consecutive World Cup game that El Tri fans chanted the slur, despite FIFA sanctions against using it. It’s more galling that it occurred at a game attended by FIFA’s president.

“Puto chant during Mexico Ecuador game in a game where Infantino in attendance,” one Outsports reader wrote us in a message. “No excuses. This is where leadership should shine. Instead he cowers. Not surprised.”

Outsports has been covering the chant for almost 15 years, and we have seen it used at World Cup matches, other international games involving Mexico and even MLS games. FIFA rules prohibit it and Mexico’s soccer federation has been fined numerous times. In June, the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s upheld fines of $178,000 for the use of the slur. “They [the judges] observed that the conduct of the fans was collective and widespread, and not merely a one-off occurrence,” CAS said in a statement.

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FIFA sanctions for the chant include stopping the match for an announcement and in the past has even meant closing a stadium and having games played without fans. All to no avail. The chant endures no matter what.

“It’s absolutely an anti-establishment thing,” Gustavo Arellano, an Los Angeles Times columnist, told The Athletic in a well-reported article on the chant. “Mexicans, at our heart, are anti-authority. That’s a good thing and that’s a bad thing. The Mexican soccer fanbase is a good reflection of the Mexican psyche: always a chip on its shoulder, always loving life, partying in the face of certain doom, but also very defiant against anyone who dares tell them that they’re wrong on anything.”

We’ll see if FIFA does anything about the chant being at consecutive Mexican World Cup matches, including one where its president was present. I wouldn’t hold my breathe. I doubt Infantino will want to ruin the good vibes the tournament is having, even in the face of homophobia.

Origins of the chant

I think it’s important to note that many people in Mexico claim that puto is not anti-gay, but Outsports has long pushed back on that. As The Athletic article notes, “‘Puto’ is listed as homophobic by CONAPRED, the Mexican government’s anti-discrimination commission.”

“Almost every person that does it will tell you, ‘Oh, but we don’t mean it that way’,” Janelly Farias, a former Mexico women’s international and an advocate for LGBTQ rights, told the outlet. “It’s f***ing infuriating. It doesn’t matter whether somebody is being intentionally homophobic or not; this chant contributes to homophobia within Mexico.”

The best argument I’ve seen for why puto is homophobic came from Andres Aradillas-Lopez, an economics professor at Penn State who was born and raised in Mexico. For the record, Aradillas-Lopez is not gay. Here is what he told Outsports about the chant in 2015, when its use first garnered widespread attention.

“Another international soccer tournament, another opportunity for Mexican soccer fans to showcase their ugly ‘puto‘ chant to the world. Concomitant with this come the apologists who claim that this chant has nothing to do with homophobia. Their argument is that ‘puto‘ in a wide sense simply refers to someone who suffers from a ‘lack of manhood’ but not necessarily gay.

“What they omit to say is that ‘puto‘ has always been a derogatory term used against gay men and, therefore, is a gay slur. In the macho universe, gay men are a subset of the universe of ‘putos‘ (I would like them to tell me why, then, do they not chant ‘puta‘ at women’s soccer games).

“This defense of the ‘puto‘ chant is as weak as the defense of the Confederate flag as a symbol of heritage and not of racism: ‘This flag honors my ancestors’ or ‘This flag was used in the Dukes of Hazard, a lighthearted, fun TV show.’ As clear as it is that the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism, the word ‘puto‘ stands for a gay slur and the reason, in both cases, is very simple: The person waving that flag or chanting that word does not get to decide the meaning of those symbols. It is the groups who have been VICTIMIZED by those symbols who get to decide.

“And this is not up for debate, not even by the most ardent puto-apologists: almost every gay man in Mexico at one point in their lives has been called ‘puto‘ in an offensive, threatening, derogatory way. This is what makes it a homophobic chant, which is inexplicable in a country that legalized gay marriage even before the United States. It is too sad that this embarrassing chant has become Mexico’s most notorious contribution to the world of sports as of late.

“Mexico is not a homophobic country; for some reason soccer fans acquire a mob mentality and start chanting this word like automatons. One-on-one, 99.9% of them would never say it. Nevertheless it HAS to stop.”

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