Dutch football won’t tackle anti-gay chants

The KNVB denounces anti-LGBTQI+ chants heard during the Netherlands-Germany match last week but does not consider it necessary to adjust its protocol for dealing with discriminatory chants, a spokesperson for the Dutch football association told NU.nl.

The chant "Alle Duitsers zijn homo," which translates to "all Germans are gay," sounded through the Johan Cruijff ArenA multiple times during the match. The KNVB protocol states that in the event of repeated chants, the club can announce through the stadium's speaker system that people should stop. If it persists, the referee can choose to halt or pause the match.

Neither of those things happened last week. The KNVB called the chants "short-lived and infrequent" in a statement a day later. The stewards were able to stop the chanting by themselves, so it was not necessary to use the announcement system, the association said, according to the newspaper.

"In this case, the stewards ensured that the chants were short-lived. Then you do not need to proceed to the next step of the protocol, having the stadium speaker ask people to stop. The question is whether such an announcement will have the desired effect at a time when the chants were dying down," the KNVB spokesperson said to NU.nl.

The KNVB does not consider the homophobic chants during the Netherlands-Germany match an indication that the protocol was inadequate. "Chants are also undesirable for us. In all respects, we want football to be a sport where everyone feels welcome. We always look at what we can do, but it is not easy to be even more radical."