“After a brief detention” in some place that was not specified, the man identified as Mario Ferri, born in 1987, “was already released by the authorities without consequences,” the Foreign Ministry detailed in a statement.
It is the first time that a match has been marked by such an intrusion since the start of the competition organized in Qatar, which has received much Western criticism regarding the treatment of LGBT+ people. Homosexuality can be criminally prosecuted.
Who is Mario Ferri?
This is not the first time that Ferri has carried out such a protest during a World Cup. In 2014, while the sports tournament was taking place in Brazil, the Italian entered the field during the Belgium-United States duel wearing a shirt bearing the inscriptions “Save the children of the favelas” and “Ciro Vive”, in tribute to a fan of Naples who died a short time before, according to the Italian agency AGI.
“We know what’s going on around the World Cup. I’m sure we’re with them, with Iran too, with the Iranian women. I hope nothing happens to this boy, because we understand his message and I think the world understands it too,” he had commented the Portuguese soccer player Ruben Neves after the game.
