“We felt it was deeply unfair that such an obvious reality was going unnoticed. While the world celebrates football, thousands of people continue to see their rights called into question. And since no media outlet was talking about this… we created one ourselves. That is how this project was born, using the language of football to tell a reality that was being ignored, even during Pride month.” [Marta Galan and Lucía Moreno, associate creative directors at Ogilvy Spain.]

Sixteen of the 48 national teams taking part in the 2026 World Cup represent countries that still persecute, criminalise or restrict the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. 

LGBTQ+ rights non-profit organisation, COGAM, and Ogilvy Spain have launched Severe Penalty, a pop-up radio station that used the Spain-Saudi Arabia match on the second matchday of the World Cup as a starting point to tell the story that is being left out of the conversation around the 2026 World Cup. While millions of people follow each World Cup matchday through the emotion of sport, there is another story that is barely part of the conversation: the situation of LGBTQ+ rights in some of the participating countries.

The initiative was born from the absence of spaces where this conversation can take place within the usual coverage of the championship. Rather than opposing football or questioning the tournament, Severe Penalty proposes using one of the biggest cultural and media events on the planet to bring into the narrative a reality that affects millions of people around the world.

The first broadcast, produced by WPP Production, was aired live on 88.8 FM, on Twitch and later made available on YouTube. Over the course of the 90 minutes, the team narrated the match while analysing the situation of LGBTQ+ rights in some of the participating countries and addressing issues such as homophobia in sport, representation of the community and the barriers that still exist both on and off the pitch.

The broadcast included a mechanic that gave meaning to the name of the initiative itself. Every time a gesture of affection, a celebration, a show of camaraderie or any attitude took place during the match that, in countries such as Saudi Arabia, could become grounds for persecution or repression of the LGBTQ+ community, a “Severe Penalty” sounded. The final result of the match was four “Severe Penalties”, highlighting the contradiction between the normality with which these gestures are part of football and the reality experienced by millions of people off the pitch.

The broadcast brought together sports journalists, legal experts, researchers, athletes and leading voices from the LGBTQ+ community, including Raúl Rojo, sports commentator; Ronny de la Cruz and Nacho Cortez, COGAM’s president and communications board member; Alberto Lejárraga, UD Sanse goalkeeper and the only Spanish professional footballer to have publicly come out as gay; Jesús Tomillero, the first Spanish referee to come out; sports journalist Andrea Segura; Sandra Jiménez de Castro, the first transgender woman registered with a handball federation; Luis Sánchez, coordinator of COGAM’s legal advisory service; Iván Sambade and Anastasia Téllez, as well as Eduardo Casanova and Paco León, two well-known actors on the Spanish national scene, among other participants.

“The World Cup is one of the biggest cultural and social events on the planet. Precisely because of its ability to mobilize millions of people, we believe it should also be a space to reflect on the inequalities that still exist off the pitch”, COGAMexplained.

The initiative was also created to take the conversation beyond spaces traditionally linked to activism and placing it at the centre of the sporting and social debate. The goal is not to question football, but to use its enormous power of influence to make visible a reality that affects millions of people around the world.

Far from ending with a single broadcast, Severe Penalty is keeping the conversation alive through the Instagram profile @penamaximafm, where it continues to cover the World Cup with new content addressing LGBTQ+ rights, sport and the different realities that remain outside the usual narrative of the championship.