Iran and Egypt, who both criminalize LGBTQ people, were picked to play on a day celebrating L.G.B.T.Q. communities in the Seattle venue for the Men's World Cup. The game in Seattle on June 26 will go all out with rainbow banners, flags, arts and stories to showcase the L.G.B.T.Q. communities in Washington State.
The football associations for Iran and Egypt said on Tuesday that they had both written to FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, objecting to the Pride association with their match, demanding that all such events and displays coinciding with the game be canceled and insisting that the match be designated strictly as a sports event.
Omid Memarian, an Iranian human rights expert and senior fellow at Dawn, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that is focused on U.S. foreign policy, said the idea of Iran’s and Egypt’s national teams playing a Pride Match was “almost surreal because it places some of the world’s most repressive governments on a stage built around openness and equality.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/world/middleeast/iran-egypt-world-cup-seattle-pride.html
