Organizers of the 2022 Gay Games in Hong Kong have dropped the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association championships from the Gay Games soccer program, leaving local players in a quandary of where to plan to compete next year.
Gus Penaranda, IGLFA president, said HK2022 notified the international LGBTQ+ soccer organization of the cancellation in an email May 12. IGLFA now expects to receive bids from Sydney and Washington, D.C. and choose a new host city by July. Washington had been the runner-up in previous bidding for IGLFA s 2022 championship. Sydney will be host next year for World Pride. We knew Hong Kong would be difficult, Penaranda told the Bay Area Reporter. But it was quite a shocker. We ve had emails and text messages and calls going back to 2019. The notice gave us such little time to plan.
To mark the start of Pride Month, the BBC s LGBT Sport Podcast presenter Jack Murley suggests that there has never been a better time to be LGBTQ+ in sport.