Sweden to open the world's first LGBT+ football stadium

A football stadium in Sweden will become the country’s first to have special “LGBT+ status”, having been designed to be as inclusive as possible.

Studenternas stadium, in the youth-friendly city of Uppsala, will feature gender neutral toilets and accessible dressing rooms. People who work at the stadium will be given specific training on LGBT+ issues.

Danne Eriksson, Uppsala’s marketing director, said:

Uppsala municipality aims to be open and inclusive, where everyone has the same rights and possibilities,

We want to guarantee equal treatment in all areas, regardless of gender, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.

This stadium is just the latest move that forms part of an ongoing drive to make Uppsala more LGBT+ inclusive.

Eriksson believes that the stadium will “increase the feeling of belonging, comfort and safety and it will improve the knowledge and understanding of LGBT people and equality”.

Although we won’t see the finished product until the stadium re-opens in 2020, with so much talk of homophobia in football surrounding the World Cup in Russia it is heartening to see Sweden taking the lead in terms of LGBT+ inclusion in football.

HT: Pink News

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