By Mark Baber
March 8 – In the wake of the Chair of the Nigerian Women’s Professional League reportedly banning lesbians from playing football, FIFA has now written to the Nigerian Football Fedearation requesting clarification.
“We will call the club chairmen to control their players and such players will not be able to play for the national team.
“There are particular clubs that don’t even want to hear about it and once they hear it the players involved will be sacked.”
A number of organisations have sent a joint letter and FIFA General Secretary Jérôme Valcke demanding action on the issue. [http://gaygames.org/wp/blog/2013/03/07/update-iglfa-joins-fgg-eglsf-football-v-homophobia-and-allout-in-appeal-for-action-from-fifa-on-exclusion-of-lesbians-from-nigerian-football-lesbophobiainsport-homophobiainsport-fifa/]
The letter points out that discrimination is against FIFA statutes and quotes Blatter as saying on the FIFA site that “[the] sexual orientation of a player or coach is a private matter. People have to be able to live their lives free from all forms of discrimination.”
The letter is signed by the presidents of the Federation of Gay Games, of the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation, Football v Homophobia and AllOut.org, an organisation of over 1.4 million members.
The FIFA code of conduct states “persons bound by this Code may not offend the dignity or integrity of a country, private person or group of people through contemptuous, discriminatory or denigratory words or actions on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, wealth, birth or any other status, sexual orientation or any other reason.”
In addition officials are banned from “abusing their position in any way, especially to take advantage of their position for private aims…”
The current furore follows reports that the coach of the Nigerian team participating in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany explained that she had excluded players presumed to be lesbians from the team – reports the coach later denied.
In this instance, if Dilichukwu Onyedinma stands by the statements attributed to her by the media, her position becomes difficult to hold under FIFA’s code of conduct. Onyedinma, an evangelical Christian, has not distanced herself from the comments.
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