People like to say that people who see roof damage in everyone often have the worst of it themselves. That applies impressively to World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman. In an interview for the ZDF documentary "Geheimsache Qatar", he once again proved how little progressive some Qataris are on the subject of homosexuality.
Of course, it is well known that things like freedom of expression, human rights and tolerance are often foreign words in the World Cup host country. Although FIFA would like to give you the image of a now open and hospitable nation, you are constantly being served evidence to the contrary. World Cup ambassador Khalid Salman described homosexuality as "mental damage". First of all, one would like to suggest to Mr. Salman to have himself examined for possible damage. Something must go really wrong if you resort to such inhuman statements. "During the World Cup, many things will come into the country. Let's talk about gays, for example. Everyone will accept that they come here. But they will have to accept our rules," he told ZDF. Well, the people concerned should feel cordially invited.
Salman describes homosexuality as "haram" - a sin, and has a particular problem with children seeing gay men. After all, they would learn something that was not good. Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani recently described the criticism of Qatar, especially from Europe, as "very arrogant and very racist". He accused the federal government of "double standards". Perhaps he should rather sweep his own front door in this regard. In order to be able to cope with that before the start of the World Cup, he might have to work as hard as the country lets foreign workers toil for it. But with people like Khalid Salman, that's probably no use anymore. It's all the worse that someone like that can become a World Cup ambassador and thus have to commit to the supposed values of FIFA. It's just unfortunate that FIFA is full of double standards. Incidentally, the ZDF interview with Salman was immediately interrupted by the spokesman for the World Cup organizing committee. In the end, we've heard enough about this one anyway.
This article was originally published on 90min.de as a scandal before the start of the World Cup: Ambassador describes home sexuality as "mental damage".
