Javier “Chicharito” Hernández
, the legendary soccer player from Mexico’s National team , has asked Mexican fans to stop shouting homophobic slurs at the World Cup games, arguing that they could result in more fines from FIFA .
The striker made the request through an Instagram story this morning: “This goes to all Mexican fans at the stadiums: Do NOT yell 'puto' (faggot) . We shouldn’t risk another sanction.”
Mexico made history last Sunday in defeating Germany’s National Team 1-0 at their first game from the F Group. South Korea , who lost 1-0 against Sweden , will be Mexico’s rival in the next game.
In 2016 , players from the National Team launched a video on the subject of homophobia, pleading fans to stop the slur, but there are still many people that haven’t complied.
Thousands of Mexican fans are now in Russia for the World Cup and some of them yelled the controversial slur during the game against Germany, which led FIFA to open a case against Mexico last Monday .
Mexico’s National Team tweeted a message addressed to Mexican fans in Russia: “To all our beloved fans in Russia, please don’t make authorities throw you out of the stadium or take away your Fan ID. This type of yell is unhelpful to us. Please check out FIFA’s rules of civility.”
Mexico’s Football Federation (Femexfut)
was sanctioned on 12 occasions during the World Cup playoffs, though it received two warnings before being officially fined for the fans’ homophobic slur.
The slur was very popular among the tricolor team’s fans at the 2014 World Cup , during which FIFA took no action to fight the trend. Later on, the international institution launched a hard-hitting campaign against this type of behavior, fining Latin-American federations from Argentina and Chile .
FIFA places three surveillance agents at the stadium during each of the World Cup games so that they may report discriminatory attitudes from audiences.
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