It took just two games for Major League Soccer’s newest team to face a fan-focused controversy.
Since its home opener on March 1, San Diego FC has been scrambling to address a homophobic chant used repeatedly by the home crowd and prevent a reoccurrence.
“What took place during our first-ever home match does not reflect who we are as a club or the values we stand for,” a Monday statement from the club read. “The sport of football brings people together, and in San Diego, that inclusive spirit thrives. The use of homophobic language in our stadium is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated. San Diego FC is built on respect and the belief that soccer is for everyone. We are committed to fostering an environment where all fans, players and staff feel safe and welcome.”
Leaders in San Diego aren’t the first team officials to struggle to control sports fans, and they won’t be the last.
Teams in all major sports, including BYU in college football and basketball, have faced bad fan behavior, but no standard solution has emerged yet, in part because every crowd has a mind of its own.
MLS expansion team
San Diego FC is new to the MLS this season. It’s the first expansion team since St. Louis City joined the league in 2023, according to Sports Illustrated.
The San Diego and St. Louis clubs met on Saturday at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego in front of more than 34,000 fans.
Throughout the game, the San Diego FC X account shared excited updates about the home opener, highlighting the pregame fireworks display and some of the high-profile Californians wishing the team good luck.
But after the game, team leaders were worried about more than the fact that it ended in a 0-0 tie.
They had to balance thanking fans for offering their enthusiastic support, while also warning them that homophobic chants won’t be tolerated.
“I just want to make very clear that it has no place here,” said San Diego FC coach Mikey Varas on Saturday. “If they’re going to continue to come to the game and make that chant, it’s better that they don’t come here.”
Offensive chant in soccer
The chant in San Diego, which is less than 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, involved a Spanish slur that’s commonly used by fans of Mexico’s national soccer team, according to The Associated Press.
During Saturday’s game, the chant resulted in three warnings from game organizers on the stadium video boards and over the stadium’s PA system.
“The last of those warnings added an additional threat that the game could be abandoned if they did not comply,” per The Athletic.
Those warnings are standard in the MLS and in FIFA, which have been on guard against that particular chant for years.
“It is a very complicated issue,” said San Diego FC CEO and co-owner Tom Penn to The Athletic. “It’s very emotional and it’s very divisive. But it’s not a difficult position for us to take. Our position is clear: we want to be a club that’s inclusive for all, one that is a source of entertainment and joy and fun. And this is the opposite of that, in that it creates such a wedge, and it’s so divisive.”
Several MLS teams, including the Los Angeles Football Club and Houston Dynamo, have been where San Diego FC is right now. And, for the most part, they’ve been successful in convincing fans to stop using the chant by simply having conversations with them about why it’s bad, The Athletic reported.
In Mexico, on the other hand, soccer leagues have had limited success trying to convince fans to stop using the chant by hitting their pocketbooks.
“The chant ... has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the past two decades,” the AP reported.
Mexican teams have recently started using AI technology to identify which fans are still chanting so that they can dole out more targeted punishments.
“So much of the issue with policing the use of the chant at games is how unpredictable its use is and how difficult it can be to identify individual fans who participate in it,” The Athletic reported.
Addressing bad fan behavior
Another factor that makes chants hard to police is that they’re sometimes linked to a specific opponent and, for that reason, may occur only once per season or once every few years.
Under those circumstances, team leaders will generally apologize and speak to their fans about appropriate behavior, but there’s not as much urgency to create new rules or punishments.
BYU athletes and fans have become familiar with that response in recent years as they’ve faced profane chants at a football game against USC in 2021, a football game against Oregon in 2022, a basketball game against Providence in 2024 and a basketball game against Arizona last month.
They’ve received apologies from their opponents, but there hasn’t yet been an NCAA- or Big 12-wide push to stop the chants once and for all.
When fan misbehavior is more serious, such as when fans physically interfere with an opposing athlete, home teams typically go beyond apologizing.
For example, after recent issues during Utah Jazz, Utah football and New York Yankees games, the home team worked to identify the fan or fans who created the problem and then took away their season tickets, banned them from future games or turned identifying information over to the police.
Some combination of these approaches generally reduces the risk of future bad behavior, but team leaders are always on guard against new issues.
Penn told The Athletic that San Diego FC plans to clearly communicate what is and isn’t acceptable to fans ahead of the next home game and then enforce the rules when fans break them.
“We’re not going to reinvent the wheel here,” Penn said.
San Diego FC schedule
San Diego FC is set to play on Saturday against Real Salt Lake in Utah at 7:30 p.m. MST.
The club will next play at home one week later on Saturday, March 15, against the Columbus Crew.