Footballer Mohamed Camara covers anti-homophobia badge during game
Monaco’s Mohamed Camara covered the LGBTQ+ bade and refused to take a picture with teammates to mark IDAHOBIT 2024. (Getty)
Mali international and Monaco footballer Mohamed Camara was spotted wearing a shirt with tape covering a badge supporting the LGBTQ community during a game at the weekend.
Camara was playing against Nantes for French Ligue 1 side Monaco on Sunday (19 May), but, unlike his teammates, the badge on his shirt, with the word ‘homophobie’ – French for homophobia – with a red cross through it, was obscured.
Both team’s players were asked to participate in a pre-match photograph standing behind a banner supporting the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).
The move was part of a league-wide enterprise to combat homophobia, an annual event in French football.
Camara, 24, opted out of the photograph, in addition to covering the logo on his team shirt.
Monaco coach Adi Hütter told France24: “First of all, I would like to say that we, as a club, support the operation organised by the league. For his part, it was a personal initiative. There will be an internal discussion with him about this situation.”
Rouge Direct, a collective of Paris whistleblowers who seek to stamp out homophobia within football, took to X/Twitter to criticise Camara. Tagging France’s top league, they asked: “Are you interested in sanctioning these behaviours once in a while?”
Describing Camara’s action as unacceptable, French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra also called for disciplinary action against the midfielder.
Speaking to French radio station RTL, Oudéa-Castéra said: “Such behaviour must be met with the toughest sanctions both for the player but also for his club which allowed him to do it.”
Monaco won the game – the last of the season – 4-0 to finish runners-up in Ligue 1, behind Paris Saint-Germaine.
How did this story make you feel?
