Why the Premier League Rainbow Laces Campaign is Necessary in 2024

By Emma O’Sullivan, Sport Editor

The Premier League Rainbow Laces campaign has been an ever-present fixture in the English footballing calendar since it began in 2013. In conjunction with Stonewall, the campaign aims to promote LGBTQ+ ‘equality and diversity’ amongst children and young people at a grassroots level, as well as showing support in the top flight of English professional football – in both the men’s and women’s divisions. For two gameweeks every season, the Premier League have special Rainbow Laces pitch flags, ball plinths, handshake boards, and substitute boards. Rainbow armbands are handed out to team captains and rainbow laces are handed to players to wear in solidarity with the campaign.

For the purpose of this exploration into the Rainbow Laces campaign, the culture surrounding it and why it’s needed, the focus will be on the men’s game. In the women’s game, LGBTQ+ representation is plentiful and homophobia is almost a non-issue, whereas it’s the complete opposite on the men’s side. For the most part, since its inception, the Premier League campaign has gone smoothly enough from a club/player perspective. The campaign gives each club an opportunity to promote equality and inclusion by showing the public the work they’re doing as individual clubs - releasing player interviews on the subject, doing work around the community etc. For example, this year Southampton and England goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale spoke about his brother being gay and what he has had to deal with, after first speaking about it in an interview with The Players’ Tribune last year. Ex-Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson regularly gave public interviews and dedicated matchday notes to the Rainbow Laces campaign when it came about every year during his time at Liverpool, highlighting the importance of the campaign and his duty as a footballer to help promote it. These sentiments were unfortunately overshadowed by his transfer to Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq in July 2023, with many feeling he had abandoned his values in favour of money. Despite this, the Rainbow Laces campaign has given opportunities to clubs and players to give these kinds of interviews, open up about issues such as homophobia, and show how football can be a positive influence on society and help promote equality.

There are many negative headlines for every positive one however, with the campaign facing much resistance from footballers this year in particular. There have been three incidents in particular which have caused controversy – Ipswich Town club captain Sam Morsy refused to wear the rainbow armband, citing his Muslim faith as his reasoning, Crystal Palace captain Marc Guéhi wrote ‘I love Jesus’ on his rainbow armband, and the Manchester United squad showing solidarity to Noussair Mazraoui after he refused to wear a special rainbow warm-up jacket before a game. Last year, Anel Ahmedhozic of Sheffield United became the first captain to refuse the rainbow armband, for religious reasons like Morsy, in what was his first game as captain for the club. This increase in player resistance to the campaign is disappointing, seeing as it was never publicly resisted to this degree prior to last year, having been a part of the footballing calendar for ten years before that.

For the cases of Morsy and Mazraoui, much like Ahmedhozic, using their Muslim faith as an explanation for rejection of the campaign leads to an unbelievably morally grey area for the public to navigate. There are many, many sides to argue from regarding their explanations. Morsy was born in England but has played nine times for Egypt, and Mazraoui, born in the Netherlands, is a Moroccan international. In both countries which they represent, homosexuality is illegal. In one sense, their instinct to perhaps not be fully supportive of the campaign can be understood. LGBTQ+ people are essentially not a visible part of their culture, and therefore the topic of representation and equality is deemed a non-issue. However, to publicly reject the message of equality as Premier League footballers, with the status and platform these athletes have, in a country where LGBTQ+ discrimination is a hate crime, is another thing.

Morsy ran the risk of alienating LGBTQ+ Ipswich Town fans as the captain of their club, or any player or academy player playing for the club who may be struggling with their sexuality or gender identity, by publicly refusing to wear the armband. At Man United, it seems the players chose to not wear the rainbow jacket as a group in order to protect Mazraoui from outside criticism, but once again it has a similar message: LGBTQ+ fans and players are not given much thought. Another issue pointed out on social media is the hypocrisy of these footballers citing their religion as an explanation for their actions – football is full of betting and gambling sponsors, with Morsy in particular having played for clubs with these sponsors plastered on their football kits. Of course, there’s an argument here that they cannot control the sponsors of the team. There are other sides to that though, particularly when you see clubs like Liverpool refrain from using Carlsberg as a sponsor for their Player of the Match awards when their Muslim players win it. As of the writing of this article, the Football Association and Premier League are yet to comment on Morsy’s stance.

The case of Marc Guéhi doesn’t seem to be as cut and dry – he went against FA rules by displaying a religious message on his team kit, i.e. the ‘I [heart] Jesus’ on the rainbow armband. However, his intentions with the message are somewhat unclear – on first glance, it may seem his message implied him not agreeing with what the rainbow stood for, and putting his own beliefs out there. These particular armbands are the only ones he has ever written this message on. However, in an interview with Sky Sports since, he has said that he expressed a message of love, truth, and inclusivity, and that it spoke for itself, seemingly implying that Jesus loves all regardless. Social media remained divided following his explanation, perhaps showing that it was never going to be possible to please everyone.

This brings up another debate that will no doubt rage on for as long as football is as high-profile as it is – should football players actually have to make gestures like this? They play football for a living and get paid to do as much, should it be their responsibility to promote social justice, when football, and sport in general, only represents one faction of society? It is very obviously an issue that belongs to society as a whole – why should it be left to football to try to solve it, and then have to take the flack if it doesn’t ‘work’ or ‘do enough’, or when not everyone agrees with these campaigns? There may have been some validity in this argument in 2013 at the beginning of the Rainbow Laces campaign - however 11 years on, when footballers like Jordan Henderson and Aaron Ramsdale have spoken out and shown themselves as allies (although that title for Henderson is perhaps revoked in the eyes of many now), the act of wearing the rainbow armband and multi-coloured laces for two matches a year seems quite small.

There are many reasons why the Premier League needs to continue with this campaign, and treat homophobia with as much intolerance as any other form of discrimination. First of all, from a surface-level perspective, the social media comment sections of any club or player who posts about the campaign is usually a cesspit of ‘fans’ who do not like this message of inclusivity, and make their feelings clear. There are usually a couple of incidents of homophobia that make headlines throughout the season in English football, and clubs are charged every so often with incidents of homophobic chanting, or an individual involved in homophobic abuse. What is scary about this is that this abuse gets aimed at straight footballers. At this current moment, there is only one openly gay professional footballer in English football, in all of 92 clubs in the top four divisions: Jake Daniels of Blackpool F.C. The incidents of homophobia against straight players will only ever discourage footballers from coming out, as there is no doubt the abuse would be much worse for them. So this football culture, which is not nearly as bad or as open as it used to be in terms of blatant homophobia, still has a lot of work that needs doing to become a genuinely inclusive sport, for everyone of all identities and sexualities.