What was the anti gay chant in denver

But like a lot of words, it has different meanings depending on your point of view and, even moreso, your identity. Then Sifuentes became a father. Whether it has any place in soccer stadiums is about more than than sports and fandom. The debate raises questions about identity, community and mutual respect in our increasingly diverse country at a time when divisive racial politics dominate a presidential campaign.

On Twitter, I called it an anti-gay slur and urged the soccer club and its fan-run supporters group to do something about it. I was won over by the moments of individual brilliance and collective heart. Soccer inspires entire nations to hold their collective breaths over 90 minutes, then exhale in ecstasy or collapse in agony.

There is a reason soccer is known as the beautiful game. To those who call soccer boring, consider that NFL games run over three hours and feature about 17 minutes of action. Soccer fans pledge allegiance to club and country. My first loyalty is to country. Yet in the U.

The vast majority of chants and tradition are borrowed. The governing body of world soccer, FIFA, has taken baby steps toward trying to eradicate insulting and discriminatory chants in the stands. It seems to have changed little. The Rapids have struggled to find a foothold in a market saturated with professional sports teams.

To grow the sport and the business, club officials need to cobble together a motley fanbase of families from nearby Stapleton and elsewhere, Latino fans and twentysomethings.

Photo shows US soccer star Christian Pulisic silencing Mexican fans as a beer is hurled at his head

The group did not go so far as to ban the term from the three sections of the stadium it controls. C38, not the front office, sells tickets in these sections. An outright ban, Wegner explained, might be viewed as disrespecting Latino culture and unfairly suggesting the people who use it at games are homophobic.

People can call it whatever they want. We are trying to keep fires from starting. The move seems to have made an impact. A year-old who works in public health, Montoya is Mexican-American and gay. But that chant has no place. Probably not. Conversation and education can be more effective than handing down rules.

In SectionSifuentes is trying to get his soccer-crazy young son to embrace an alternative goal-kick chant to the one he has decided to leave behind. Follow him on Twitter: egorski. By Eric Gorski egorski denverpost.