REUTERS' Andrew Downie noted Mexico F Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez has appealed to fans "to stop their homophobic chanting at World Cup matches, on a day when FIFA once again fined the Mexican football federation for their fans' misconduct." FIFA fined the FMF $10,000 for what it called "discriminatory and insulting chants" during Mexico's 1-0 win over Germany on Sunday. Mexican fans have "long shouted a slang word for a male sex worker at games, which gay rights groups argue is homophobic." The chant was "widely heard at Mexico games" during the '14 World Cup in Brazil. FIFA at that time "took no action, but the governing body has since launched a clamp-down" (REUTERS, 6/20).
PARTY DOWN SOUTH: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Joshua Robinson notes data from FIFA showed the U.S. was "second only to Russia in ticket sales" for the World Cup. But "spend any time wandering around Moscow bars, Russian airports or stadium concourses and it becomes apparent that those landed in the hands of a different set of American fans entirely: Ones who root for the Americas to the south." Since the tournament began, Moscow has "turned into a fiesta of Mexicans, Argentines, Brazilians, Colombians, Uruguayans and, improbably, Peruvians, who are at the World Cup for the first time" since '82. The Peruvians, in particular, have been "impossible to miss." Peru's Association of Travel Agencies and Tourism noted "some 40,000 of them have traveled to Russia" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/21).
FRAUD ALERT: In N.Y., Mike Ives reports the Chinese government was the victim of a "ticketing swindle orchestrated by a Moscow company called Anzhi," which left "possibly thousands of Chinese fans whose World Cup tickets never materialized." The Chinese Embassy in Moscow last week "confirmed the fraud with Russia's Foreign Ministry and the local organizing committee for the World Cup." The embassy "did not say how many fans had been swindled." But three Chinese travel agencies "wrote to their local tourism office saying that Anzhi ... told them it had sold about 10,000 tickets, 3,500 of them to Chinese fans" (NYTIMES.com, 6/21).
