When Seattle’s World Cup host committee designated Friday’s game as its official Pride Match, it did not know that later, the scheduling draw would assign the contest to Iran and Egypt, two countries where gay people are persecuted.
Progressive politics and an inclusive attitude are at the root of the city’s civic identity, and the organizers said they hoped the conversation stirred up by the match between Iran and Egypt would resonate within the L.G.B.T.Q. communities in those countries.
Jen Barnes, one of the Pride Match organizers, said the game was “for folks all over the world who are not able to come out safely or are discriminated against.”
Ms. Barnes, the owner of Rough & Tumble, a sports bar in Seattle that shows women’s and men’s sports in equal measure, said international sports events can help host cities transmit their values to the world.
“It’s an opportunity to navigate some new conversations, or some needed conversations,” she said.
Inside Seattle’s Lumen Field stadium Friday night, the stands were hardly pulsing with the colors of the rainbow. The seats were mostly filled with passionate fans of Egypt and Iran, focused on the action on the field.
Karolyn Sharp, though, was draped in a rainbow flag. “I have family and loved ones who are gay, trans, nonbinary. And I’m a Pacific Northwest girl, and when we have Pride we go big.”
When she learned that the Pride match would feature Iran and Egypt, she said, “I thought irony was having a day.”
Before the game, the streets outside the stadium felt like a carnival of self-expression, filled with Pride celebrants, people with “Free Ukraine” shirts and Jehovah’s Witnesses. A man drove by in a truck with a billboard reading “Kick L.G.B.T.Q. Ideology out of the World Cup,” followed by a man on a bike waving a pink, blue and white trans flag at him.
But by far the loudest voices were Iranian Americans opposed to the government of Iran. They were chanting slogans and waving Iranian flags from before the revolution that brought Islamists to power in the country.
One of them, Iliya Miramin, 47, said he laughed when he heard which teams would be playing in the Pride Match. He said he supports Pride, in part, because it highlights injustice in Iran, his home country. “They kill L.G.B.T.Q. people,” he said. “They arrest them.”
Before the match, Gary Szeredy, who owns several bars in Seattle, including one near the stadium, was handing out scarves to fans. He noted the strong support for Pride he had observed among Iranian Americans. “What’s most interesting to me is that so many of them are living here because they escaped that oppression,” he said.
In the lead up to the match, soccer officials from Iran and Egypt opposed the Pride event on religious grounds. “Iran and Egypt are two Muslim countries with deep cultural and religious commonalities,” Iran’s soccer federation said in a statement, saying the opposition to the event reflected the values shared by the people of both countries.
In Iran, relationships between same-sex couples are criminalized, “with punishments ranging from flogging to the death penalty,” according to Human Rights Watch. In Egypt, homosexuality is not explicitly illegal, but gay couples are routinely persecuted with charges of “debauchery” or “violating family values,” according to the State Department.
FIFA attempted to balance the objections from Iran and Egypt with the decisions of the local organizers. The body said it was not involved in the Pride Match designation, but noted that “general statements of human rights, including rainbow flags and other flags representing sexual orientation and gender identity, are permitted” inside the stadiums.
The objections to the World Cup Pride Match echoed the recent opposition by some players to a similar celebration in Major League Baseball this month. In protest against their team’s Pride game, several pitchers from the San Francisco Giants wrote Bible verses on their Pride-themed ball caps, stirring a dayslong controversy in the city.
Hedda McClendon, a member of Seattle’s World Cup host committee, offered a message to Iran and Egypt’s soccer teams before the game: “I hope you feel welcome, I hope you ask questions, I hope you are curious. This is not what it looks like in your country, and this is not what it looks like in many parts of the United States of America.”
Tariq Panja and Shirin Hakim contributed reporting from Seattle.
