July 8 – Third division Spanish team CD Guadalajara has demonstrated its support of the LGBT movement in its newly unveiled home kit. A rainbow stripe runs down the center of the purple shirt, in aim of challenging social injustices such as homophobia.
Hummel, who are producing the shirts, announced that 5% of the sales of the shirt will be donated to ‘La Liga Arco Iris’, which translates as La Liga Rainbow, who are dedicated to fighting homophobia and prejudice in Spanish football.
No top-flight Spanish footballer has ever come out as gay publicly. The University of Sevilla has been working in conjunction with Andalucian federation ARCO IRIS to assess the level of tolerance toward gays in the region. ARCO IRIS has been urging players to come out in order to serve as positive role models for young homosexuals.
CD Guadalajara will not be alone in sporting the rainbow theme in Spanish football for the upcoming season. La Liga’s Rayo Vallecano recently revealed a diagonal rainbow-inspired stripe running across their away shirt.
Each color on Rayo’s shirt will represent a group of societal unsung heroes. Red supports those fighting cancer, orange supports disabled people’s rights, yellow supports people suffering from depression, green supports environmental issues, blue supports those fighting child abuse, pink supports those fighting domestic abuse, and the generated rainbow supports those discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation.
Eight dollars from each Rayo away kit sold will be distributed among the seven causes. This is in addition to the $1.10 from every season ticket sold that will be gifted to various charities.
Rayo also revealed a third kit, which is silver with a pink sash, in attempt to raise awareness of breast cancer. Five dollars of each of these kits sold will go to a cancer charity.
All of Rayo’s kits for the 2015/2016 will be available to purchase on July 15.
Efforts to remove homophobia in football are seemingly gaining traction. The rainbow aesthetics could become a more common feature on the screens, particularly as gay rights charity Stonewall has been sending rainbow laces to all professional clubs in Britain.
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