Homosexuality is a damage in the mind, says World Cup envoy

An official ambassador for the football World Cup in Qatar has gone rogue during a German TV interview before being suddenly cut off.

An official ambassador for the football World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as a form of “damage in the mind” during a German television interview, before he was swiftly cut off by a media adviser.

The Arab state, where homosexuality is punishable by up to three years in prison, has struggled to fend off criticism of its record on LGBTI rights.

It has signalled that foreigners will be able to display symbols such as the rainbow flag during the tournament, but visiting fans have been warned against publicly violating its sexual mores.

Khalid Salman, a retired Qatari football star who is one of the ambassadors for the World Cup, underscored this tension with his remarks on gay rights.

In an interview with ZDF, a German public broadcaster, Salman, 60, acknowledged that “many things will come into this country” in the course of the tournament. “Let us talk about gay people, for example,” he said. “The most important thing is that everyone accepts they are coming here – and they would have to accept our rules.”

He added that he was worried Qatari children might see gay men and learn “something that is not good”. Asked why homosexuality was banned in his country, Salman said it was haram – an Arabic term meaning forbidden in Islamic law – and “a damage in the mind”.

His comments are likely to add to unease in the build-up to the World Cup, which begins on November 20. Critics including Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA president who oversaw the decision to award the tournament to Qatar, have raised concerns ranging from bribery of senior FIFA officials to the exploitation of migrants in building the stadiums.

None of the nations that qualified have decided to boycott the competition, but several indicated their discomfort. At the weekend FIFA’s leadership sent a letter asking participating countries to refrain from further discussion of Qatar’s human rights record and urging them to “focus on the football”.

The message does not appear to have reached Blatter, 86, who suggested Wednesday morning that the World Cup was being held in Qatar only because of political arm-twisting from Paris. “Qatar is a mistake,” he told the Tages-Anzeiger, a newspaper in his native Switzerland.

Blatter, favoured holding the tournament in the US instead.

The Times