The Homophobic Chants at San Diego's Inaugural Home Opener

by Annamaria Lu

It's past midnight and St. Louis City SC just finished a scoreless draw at Snapdragon Stadium for San Diego FC's Inaugural Home Opener. I can't sleep - not because of the score, not because of the gameplay itself, but because I am so angry about a homophobic chant that was used incessantly during the game by San Diego fans whenever Roman Bürki had the ball for a goal kick.

The problem was that the homophobic chants started very early in the match, and were audible from home through streaming. It was nearly the entire match where the slur was thrown repeatedly at St. Louis CITY SC. There was no acknowledgement until the end of the game. In the final minutes of the game, the stadium announcer gave a warning reminding the fans that discrimination would not be tolerated in MLS. He then gave an additional warning with ~90 seconds remaining saying that if it happened again, the match could be suspended. It's worth noting that the MLS announcers, Taylor Twellman and Jake Zivin, didn't acknowledge the chants once in their commentary. In fact, they repeatedly (and shamefully) complimented the atmosphere at Snapdragon Stadium when you could clearly hear the slur.

I will not type out the chant here, but I will link to some articles describing the situation in other matches.   For example, in 2021, Mexico was punished and had to play without fans after their fans used the homophobic slur against teams. In 2022, U.S. Soccer banned any homophobic chants. In 2023, the problem persisted and a policy was put in place by U.S. Soccer Federation for a United States vs. Mexico game. Last year, in 2024, the US vs Mexico CONCACAF game was stopped due to the discriminatory chants.

There are processes for suspending matches globally in these situations. FIFA has their Three Step Procedure for discriminatory instances. While it is not without flaws, it does provide a framework. In June of 2021, MLS even acknowledged the slur as a problem, calling it an "ugly homophobic chant." In that article, Mexican player and broadcaster Janelly Farias was quoted saying one route that should be taken is, "zero tolerance. Hear it once and just end the game. I think there's so many loopholes in these protocols. It's like step one, step two, step three but who's really enforcing this? It's very difficult to monitor that. I think we've been warned for years and so the fact that they have to give a warning before the game, a warning when it's said and then another warning, it's not going to work. I genuinely don't think it's going to work."

I don't believe for a minute MLS or anyone involved in that game had any intention of suspending the match. The willful refusal of Twellman and Zivin to acknowledge the chant, the lack of a stadium wide announcement until the final seconds of the game, the fact that it was an inaugural home opener for San Diego FC: all those things contribute to an "ignorance is bliss" action on the part of MLS. It would draw greater negative attention to the league if they had done the right thing and suspended. By doing nothing, they could hope for it going as unnoticed as possible by fans not directly watching the San Diego v St. Louis game.

Furthermore, chants are a backbone of the supporters efforts for their team, and while I acknowledge that they may not have been led by the supporters groups for San Diego (all under the umbrella of San Diego Independent Supporters Union), supporters groups do set the tone for the supporters section. At the time of posting this article, I cannot find anything on the supporters groups social media that apologizes for the chants or asks their members to do better. Their overall Code of Conduct prohibits hate speech and disrespectful language, and states that "Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, threats, harassment, and violence will NOT be tolerated under any circumstances." I hope that they are stringent with this Code of Conduct - as a new team, it's important to set the stage early.

Overall, it's an extremely ugly look for San Diego FC's first home opener. I hope going forward, both MLS and the San Diego fans will adjust. MLS cannot allow fans to treat opposing teams by ignoring the behavior, and it will not stop unless there is a consequence for their actions the affects their team. 

Afterall, soccer is for everyone.