The team needed about $50,000 to get back in business.
Photo: Angel Martinez/Getty Images
After eight years of inactivity, the Mexican selection of sexual diversity (Tri gay) struggles to once again be a transgressor of the macho structure and homophobic football, and not become an anecdote.
“The main success of the Tri gay was to transgress a sexist and homophobic field like soccer. It is still necessary, there is discrimination, there are hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community. Until this is finished, it would no longer be necessary, ”the founder and leader of the team, Andoni Bello, explained this Saturday to Efe.
The Mexican selection of sexual diversity, made up of amateur players, was on the agenda of the media and of Mexico in 2006when he prepared to attend his first Lesbian-Gay World Cup, Buenos Aires 2007.
Financed mostly with their own resources and ignored by the Mexican Football Federation, which has always refused to support them for not participating in tournaments endorsed by FIFA, they were among the 20 best in the Buenos Aires event.
Participation in 2007 gave them the opportunity to receive part of their funding from a deputy and better prepare for the London 2008 World Cup, in which they have achieved their greatest success on a court so far, a third place in the second division.
In 2009, the Sports Institute of Mexico City began to give them resources to attend the ‘Out games’ Copenhagen 2009 and the ‘Gay games’ Cologne 2010however after the discontent of other LGBTQ + teams, the support ended and the decline came.
Although the Tri gay organized the World Cup in Mexico in 2012, paid with the inscriptions of the other teams, It no longer had the same strength, due to the fact that members of the squad pointed out to Bello that he would enrich himself with what the selection generated.
“To get the project going again, I need about a million pesos per year (about 50,200 dollars).). We need a minimum of 16 players, a coach, a physical trainer and a space to train at night because many of us work”, added Bello.
The also activist in favor of the rights of the LGBTQ+ community acknowledged that he has thought of a strategy to find sponsors, but the fact that there are new sexual diversity teams in the country complicates it.
What is not arranged Bello it is to allocate his own resources to the project, for which he lost his job and ended up sleeping in his car since his boss at that time thought he trained during working hours.
Bello described as “hypocritical” the campaigns that the FMF has carried out to eradicate the homophobic cry from Mexican soccer stadiums and pointed to managers as the first people who should be made aware of LGBTQ+ issues.
“Managers are the first homophobes, if they really wanted to do something they would help to the footballers in the closet. Statistically three people out of a squad of 30 must be non-heterosexual.”
Read also:
An Argentine raises his hand to represent Mexico: Gerardo Martino’s new countrymen fall in love with El Tri
MMA fighter had a growth in her Onlyfans followers after showing her breasts after winning a match
A Mexican from Chivas de Guadalajara will face El Tri: the curious case of Santiago Ormeño