After US goalie Matt Turner was the target of anti-gay chanting, a football game had to be stopped.
Twice during Sunday’s (March 24) Nations League match between the US and Mexico, the referee stopped play due to homophobic chanting directed towards Turner.
Turner plays Premier League football for Nottingham Forest and is married to Ashley Herron, a former cheerleader for the New England Patriots.
Mexican supporters at the Texas game were heard chanting “p**o,” which is the masculine variant of the word “p**a,” which means prostitute, as the US led 2-0. Although the term is frequently used as a derogatory epithet for homosexuals, it can also mean “f****t” in Spanish.
Mexican supporters usually yell “p**o” and chant “ehhh..” as the opponent’s keeper sets up a goal kick, which is known as the “goalkeeper chant.”
Referee Drew Fischer was forced to suspend the game for over five minutes after repeated attempts to stop the homophobic shouts over the stadium’s loudspeakers were ineffective, according to the Daily Mail.
Fischer was forced to call time on the game, which the US eventually won, just before the end of regulation.
Following similar circumstances at the second leg of a Concacaf Champions Cup semi-final in Mexico City in 2021, players abandoned the field for ten minutes. At the end of the previous year, the Football Association fined Luton Town £120,000 after their supporters engaged in homophobic shouting.
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