Out on the Pitch: LGBTQ+ Athletes and the World Cup Problem

Here’s a number worth sitting with. At the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, at least 87 out LGBTQ+ athletes competed — more than double the 38 who were out in 2019, and roughly one in nine of all players. At the 2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar, the number of out players was zero. Not a handful. Not a few quiet ones. Zero.

That gap doesn’t describe some slow natural process of athletes gradually becoming more comfortable. It describes two different sporting cultures, and the Men’s World Cup’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community is, at this exact moment in June 2026, genuinely unresolved.

Qatar: What FIFA Actually Did

The 2022 tournament in Qatar was a useful test. Same-sex relationships are illegal there, in some interpretations punishable by death. Seven European nations — England, Wales, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Denmark — had agreed to have their captains wear “OneLove” armbands, a rainbow-hearted band originally launched by the Dutch Football Association in 2020 as a broad anti-discrimination statement.

Three hours before kickoff of England’s first match, FIFA told them captains would receive a yellow card at kick-off if they wore the armband. The associations caved. Harry Kane wore the official “No Discrimination” armband instead, which FIFA had conveniently promoted as an alternative. In the stands, fans were having rainbow flags confiscated.

“What does it mean in 2022 to have an opportunity to celebrate LGBT inclusion and instead sweep it under the carpet?” — Campaign group representative quoted in The Advocate

FIFA’s position throughout was that it “supports all legitimate causes, such as OneLove,” which is a sentence that really does capture something about how these institutions talk. Meanwhile, GLAAD has documented that FIFA dropped its “Unite for Inclusion” campaign from the 2026 Men’s World Cup social messaging entirely, after prominently featuring it at the 2023 Women’s tournament. It has awarded 2034 to Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality carries a prison sentence.

2026: Pride Houses but Still No Out Players

The 2026 Men’s World Cup — running right now across the United States, Canada, and Mexico — is in a better position geographically. Pride Houses are operating in all 16 host cities for the first time, organized by local LGBTQ+ NGOs and soccer clubs. They exist specifically to offer queer fans somewhere safe to watch matches.

But there is still not a single out LGBTQ+ player on any of the 48 men’s teams competing. Several major LGBTQ+ supporters’ groups, including England’s Three Lions Pride and Germany’s Queer Football Fanclub, have publicly said they’re not attending because they don’t feel safe enough — in part because of what’s happened to the US political climate around LGBTQ+ rights. “The United States is a real nightmare, in terms of queer travelers and ICE raids and racial profiling,” Keph Senett of Pride House International told the San Francisco Chronicle.

One match — Egypt vs. Iran on June 26 in Seattle — has been designated a “Pride Match” by local FIFA organizers. Both Egypt and Iran criminalize same-sex relationships. The designation has been met with some bemusement from LGBTQ+ advocates.

Why the Gap Exists

Cyd Zeigler, founder of Outsports, has a fairly direct explanation: there are more queer women in elite sport. “This is true across basketball, ice hockey and most every other sport. The WNBA has over 25% out women. That higher presence of out athletes naturally creates an environment where more women feel comfortable being out.” Men’s football, particularly the global version, has a homophobia problem in the stands that has been documented, repeatedly penalized, and has not gone away.

The historical record doesn’t help FIFA’s narrative. Justin Fashanu, the first professional footballer to come out while still playing, did so in Britain in 1990. He was ostracized, struggled to find a club, faced relentless press coverage of his personal life, and died by suicide in 1998. His brother publicly condemned the coming-out at the time. Thomas Hitzlsperger, the German midfielder who played in the Premier League, came out in 2014 — after retiring. He described being gay as “my biggest secret.” No active top-flight men’s professional footballer has been out since.

A Record That Keeps Moving

Away from football, the picture looks different. The 2024 Paris Olympics saw at least 193 out LGBTQ+ athletes compete, a new record, including a record 20 out male Olympians. At the Tokyo Games in 2021, out LGBTQ+ athletes collectively won 32 medals; if they’d competed as their own nation, they’d have ranked 11th in the overall medal table.

The pattern is consistent: Olympic sports with less aggressive crowd culture around masculinity — equestrian, swimming, athletics, gymnastics — have much higher rates of out male athletes than team ball sports. Whether men’s football ever catches up is genuinely unclear. What is clear is that FIFA’s institutional behavior has not made it easier.

The Structural Problem Nobody Wants to Name

FIFA’s 2034 decision settles something. Saudi Arabia, where male homosexual conduct is illegal under codified law and religious interpretation, will host the men’s World Cup less than a decade from now. Whatever Pride Houses are built in Seattle this summer, the institutional direction of men’s football at the global level has been made clear. The sport’s governing body has shown, through Qatar and through the armband episode and through the 2034 award, what it prioritizes when commercial interests and LGBTQ+ inclusion diverge.

That doesn’t mean nothing changes. The number of out LGBTQ+ athletes at the Olympics has tripled since 2016. The 2023 Women’s World Cup showed that nearly 12% of players can be openly LGBTQ+ without any particular organizational drama. And the first Gay Games took place in San Francisco in 1982, founded by Olympic decathlete Tom Waddell, who understood early that queer athletes might need to build their own infrastructure rather than wait for the existing institutions to make room.

Men’s football will get there, probably. The open question is whether FIFA will have had anything to do with it when it does.