MLS coach says gay slur chant should have stopped soccer match this week
Repeated anti-gay soccer chant from fans led only to a pause in play when Portland Timbers met Club America of Mexico, despite FIFA protocol. The post MLS coach says gay slur chant should have stopped soccer match this week appeared first on Outsports.
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Portland Timbers head coach Phil Neville has complained about a failure from officials to follow FIFA’s protocol for homophobic chanting at a Leagues Cup match.
Neville’s team were facing Club America at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas, Wednesday night in the annual tournament involving MLS and Liga MX clubs.
In the second half, the game was marred by anti-gay chants being directed at the Timbers players.
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Several warnings were issued over the speaker system in the 20,500-capacity stadium, but to no avail. Referee Guido Gonzales Jr. called a brief stop to proceedings, before then restarting the match.
Those actions were taken in line with the first two stages of the FIFA protocol for discriminatory chanting.
Yet despite the chanting continuing, the match officials did not proceed to the protocol’s third stage — a five-minute suspension, during which the players are instructed to the locker room.
Neville, the former England and Manchester United defender, says this was a failure of process.
“There is absolutely no room for discrimination on a football field,” he said at the post-game media conference.
“I thought the referee handled the incident very well. But I don’t think the game should have continued after that incident. I thought we should have left the field.”
‘Something has to be done,’ says Timbers coach Phil Neville
For many years, soccer games involving Mexican teams at club and international level have been spoiled by a significant number of fans directing homophobic chants, taunts and slurs at opposition players.
Often these incidents occur against U.S. teams, and commonly include the notorious gay slur “puto” chant, which targets goalkeepers.
The Timbers lost Wednesday’s game on penalties after a 1-1 draw in regulation time. Neville also claimed a laser pointer had been shone into the eyes of his ‘keeper, Canada international Maxime Crepeau, during the shootout.
Club America knew before the match that they couldn’t qualify for the Leagues Cup quarterfinals, but the result meant the Timbers narrowly missed out on a place in the last eight.
However, in his post-match interview, Neville was more concerned about the “totally unacceptable” anti-gay chants than the outcome.
“Football doesn’t matter in these situations,” he said. “It wasn’t just one incident; there were probably four or five interruptions due to acts of discrimination, announcements throughout the match talking about discrimination, and I think if we really want to take this seriously, if we really want to act consistently with what we say we stand for, then something has to be done.”
In August 2024, FIFA launched a gesture campaign to tackle race-discrimination, telling players, coaches and officials who witnessed or experienced discrimination during matches to cross their arms to indicate that an incident had happened.
Anti-discrimination body Fare later advised that the gesture should also be used for gender discrimination, homophobia and other forms of discrimination.
There have been concerns ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, that homophobic chanting will be heard during matches, particularly those held in the latter nation.
Rafael Villanueva, the director general of Mexican LGBTQ in sports organization DIDESEX, wrote in a blog post for Fare: “Will homophobia be present inside stadiums in Mexico in 2026? At the moment, it’s difficult to see how it will not be.”
However, FIFA instead chose to drop “No Discrimination” messaging at the recent Club World Cup tournament in the U.S., which featured two Mexican teams.
Homophobic chanting subsequently marred Monterrey’s clash with Borussia Dortmund, with the Dignity 2026 Coalition of human rights groups later urging FIFA to step up its approach.
Athlete Ally executive director Hudson Taylor said the dialling back of messaging from the game’s global governing body “a shocking setback for efforts to end homophobia and transphobia in sport.”
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The post MLS coach says gay slur chant should have stopped soccer match this week appeared first on Outsports.
