Source: Politics<\/p>\n
SEATTLE \u2014 FIFA has not endorsed the Seattle host-city committee\u2019s “Pride Match” designation, which will not be part of the official branding when Iran and Egypt meet tonight at Lumen Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ve always been aware of what we\u2019re doing,\u201d said Louise Chernin, who as chair of the organizing committee\u2019s Pride Match Impact Council began planning for the day nearly a year and a half ago.<\/p>\n
Chernin began her match day at Rough & Tumble, a women\u2019s sports bar in Ballard, a historically Scandinavian neighborhood where a crowd had gathered to cheer on Norway against France. The bar was notably free of FIFA\u2019s commercial imprint: The World Cup posters on the walls and the merchandise for sale were all drawn by local artists without any official logos.<\/p>\n
It all reflected the extent to which the \u201cPride Match\u201d has become a gentle challenge not only to FIFA\u2019s record of clamping down on some expressions of LGBTQ+ rights but also the corporate monoculture it creates in host cities through its restrictive sponsorship rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s going to be revenue spent, let us bring it to LGBTQ-owned businesses,\u201d said Chernin, a longtime head of the Greater Seattle Business Association, an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce.<\/p>\n
Just down the street, fans had gathered at a \u201cregnbue\u201d street festival \u2014 the word is Danish and Norwegian for \u201crainbow\u201d \u2014 organized by a local Ballard business association. The Norway-France match was being shown on an oversized screen, but when halftime hit attendees did not listen to any of the ads on the Fox broadcast.<\/p>\n
Instead DJ SummerSoft took the stage as Sativa the Queen, a local drag performer, vamped through the break.<\/p>\n