UEFA on Tuesday declined plans by the city of Munich to have its stadium illuminated in rainbow colours for the Germany-Hungary Euro 2020 match.<\/p>\n
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter\u2019s application on behalf of the council made clear it wanted to protest a law passed last week by Hungarian lawmakers that prohibits sharing with minors any content portraying homosexuality or sex reassignment. Human rights groups denounced this law as anti-LGBT discrimiantion.<\/p>\n
\u201cUEFA is a politically and religiously neutral organisation,\u201d said European football\u2019s governing body in a statement ahead of Wednesday\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the political context of this request \u2013 a message aimed at a decision taken by the Hungarian national parliament \u2013 UEFA must refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community criticised UEFA\u2019s stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find it very disconcerting how UEFA deals with values that should generally be accepted in society,\u201d Markus Ulrich, a spokesman for Germany\u2019s Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD), told AFP subsidiary SID.<\/p>\n
\u201cUEFA has not recognised the signs of the times \u2013 and it is clear to see which side it is taking with its decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
While UEFA rejected the request for the day of the match, it suggested alternative dates for June 28, which is Christopher Street Liberation Day, an annual celebration and demonstration held in various cities across Europe, or from July 3-9, the week of gay pride in Munich.<\/p>\n
The last European Championship match in Munich takes place on July 2.<\/p>\n
Disciplinary action against Germany skipper Manuel Neuer was not taken by UEFA for wearing a rainbow-coloured captain\u2019s armband.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UEFA said it understood the council\u2019s intention to send a message to promote diversity and inclusion but stressed that it was \u201ca politically and religiously neutral organization.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":32776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1774,785,1775,137,1742,1776,178],"class_list":["post-10268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-euros-2020","tag-germany","tag-hungary","tag-lgbtq","tag-manuel-neuer","tag-pride","tag-uefa"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}