July 3, 2006 | Funny Bits

Football roundup

The World Cup means one thing for gay soccer fans worldwide: Balls, lots and lots of balls -- first in Australia, where a gay website was this week asked to remove naked photos of soccer players showering, and then in Brazil, where a trio of naked men is protesting its country's World Cup spirit.

The soccer shorts dropped first Thursday in Australia, where the Australian Football League (AFL) demanded a gay website, www.gayfooty.com, delete a gallery of explicit photos featuring soccer players in various states of undress in locker rooms and showers.

According to The Age, AFL President Brandon Gale said most of the photos on the site were perfectly appropriate, but insisted that a few were "offensive" and violated players' privacy, prompting his association to make a legal threat against gayfooty.com. The AFL would have taken similar action against a straight website, he said.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, three men were playing with balls of their own -- literally -- in a naked protest against their country's love for soccer. According to Ananova, the men disagree with the way "the whole country stops to watch the football matches at the World Cup, but meanwhile the enourmous problems Brazil has in lack of education and health keep getting stronger."

 

To make their point, the threesome toured town in the nude while locals watched Brazil's match against Ghana. A local police spokesperson commented, "Someone called us to check this out but it was not a violent crime and we were watching the match so we decided not to do anything about it."

• Gay footy pics invade privacy [The Age]
• Naked protest in Brazil [Ananova]