Why are footballers being forced to promote Pride?

Free expression is under attack in the beautiful game. Elite football clubs and governing bodies have long bristled at the thought that the fans upon whose wallets they’ve grown powerful might dare to dissent from their beloved woke orthodoxy. Now, they’re turning their attention to players.

The latest player to be benched for non-compliance is Lyon midfielder Nemanja Matić. The Serbian international and former Manchester United star was handed a two-match ban this month after taping over an LGBTQ-inclusion message on his shirt in a recent Ligue 1 fixture. He has been forced by the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) to attend an ‘awareness-raising campaign… against homophobia in football’. Otherwise, he would face an additional two-match ban.

Banning players for their personal views has become a common occurrence in French football. Indeed, in the same round of fixtures, Le Havre striker Ahmed Hassan also taped over the rainbow design and received the same sanction. Nantes striker Mostafa Mohamed went further, withdrawing from his side’s relegation decider against Montpellier. In 2023, several Toulouse players were ‘withdrawn’ from the side after refusing to wear the insignia.

With Matić and Hassan the latest to join the ‘rainbow refuseniks’, the issue has drawn political attention. In May, France’s sports minister, Marie Barsacq, called for firm disciplinary measures against footballers who fail to comply. ‘Football has a massive platform’, she said, somewhat stating the obvious. ‘Society has evolved, and the language in football must change with it. There’s a full range of sanctions available, and they must be applied.’

To call Barsacq’s intervention hypocritical is an understatement. Football administrators love to talk a good game about ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’, except when it comes to applying those principles to people who disagree with them. Players like Matić, reportedly an Orthodox Christian, may hold views on homosexuality that French elites find distasteful. But they are also French citizens, and are as such entitled to freedom of expression, conscience and religion.

Indeed, from a legal perspective, the LFP’s decision to sanction Matić and others may well breach those rights. Precedent suggests that the right to freedom of belief protects silence just as much as it protects speech. Courts have confirmed that individuals can’t be compelled to make statements against their will, nor be penalised for choosing not to perform gestures of ideological conformity.

Take the case of Buscarini vs San Marino. Here, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled it unlawful to require non-believers to swear an oath on the Christian Gospels, on pain of losing their seats in San Marino’s parliament. It also affirmed that freedom of religion entails the freedom to ‘hold or not to hold religious beliefs and to practise or not to practise a religion’. That principle was reaffirmed in the 2020 case, Stavropoulos vs Greece, where the ECHR held that ‘negative rights’ include the freedom not to perform acts that might reveal one’s beliefs.

These judgements should be required reading for sporting bodies and sports ministers. Because this isn’t just about highly paid footballers whose quality of life will be fine, however many matches they miss. The real danger is what happens when the expectation to demonstrate ideological allegiance starts to trickle down into a workplace near you.

Protecting our right to principled silence is essential. No one – whether Muslim, Christian or atheist; footballer or fan – should be made to express beliefs they don’t hold.

Freddie Attenborough is the digital communications director of the Free Speech Union.