CHILE’S FIRST GAY SOCCER TEAM PREPARES FOR WORLD CUP

(March 23, 2007) Chile’s first ever gay soccer team, the Chilean Condors, is currently in training for the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association (IGLF) World Cup, which is to take place in Buenos Aires this September. The Condors will be the first entirely gay team to represent Chile at an international level.

Ricardo León has been training every week at Santiago’s National Stadium since October last year, along with 25 other team members. While León has played professionally, he says that playing for a gay team is a different kind of experience.

“There are a lot of spaces for the development of sports for heterosexuals, but we gays don’t have that,” he said. “This is our space, and when we play, there’s nobody shouting abuse at us from the sidelines.”

In addition to the gay soccer team, León is involved in the Chile Gay Deportes organization, which arranges sporting events for the LGBT community. The sports covered by the organization range from rugby and football to cheerleading and capoeira.

“When we came up with the idea of getting a team together for the World Cup, we began to ask each other why nobody had made a serious organization to deal with all this,” said Roger Ortega, director of Chile Gay Deportes. “Now, we’re organizing the first volleyball championship, with five teams participating. And we’re getting ready for the world cup. There are more than 60 of us involved in the organization.”

The IGLF World Cup will take place in Buenos Aires between September 23 and 29. Teams from England, Iceland, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and the United States have already committed to taking part. Both men’s and women’s teams will take part in the tournament, which accepts both eleven-a-side and seven-a-side teams.

Chile Gay Deportes has not been recognized as having legal status by the government, but Ortega hopes that this will soon change.

SOURCES: LA NACIÓN, IGLF, www.chilegaydeportes.com
By Cate Setterfield (editor@santiagotimes.cl)