Swansea City to host ‘Proud Together’ event

Swansea City, Rainbow Wall and the Football Association of Wales are delighted to be working collaboratively on delivering a first-ever all Welsh, fan-led, LGBTQ+ discussion.

The ‘Proud Together’ event will bring in all Welsh football clubs and their respective LGBTQ+ supporter groups to participate in this discussion, which will be held at the Swansea.com Stadium on Thursday, March 3 at 7pm.

The event will be launched just after the end of Football v Homophobia month and is an exciting platform for the LGBTQ+ community to come together to celebrate all the positive steps in football and to have an honest discussion about what challenges still exist.

“This event is hopefully going to be the start of an annual conversation between clubs, their fans and other sporting and LGBTQ+ bodies across Wales,” said Carys Ingram from the Rainbow Wall group.

“We have a duty together to create a better future for our LGBTQ+ community and other minority communities in football, and we can only move forward by talking, educating each other and putting plans in place as a collective to create a better future

“It's an extremely exciting time to be involved with this conversation in Wales.”

The event will be split into three sessions, with great representation across Welsh clubs. The first session will be supporter-led with representation from the Proud Swans, Proud Dragons, Cardiff Dragons and County with Pride.

The second session will see the clubs take the hot seat with fan engagement and inclusion, with representatives taking part from Swansea City, Cardiff City , Newport County, the FAW and David McCardle of the EFL.

The third session will celebrate those other organisations within the community giving their support to the LGBTQ+ community and their view of the future of our game and the LGBTQ+ community.

This panel will involve representation from the Football Supporters Association (FSA), Fans for Diversity, the FAW and Football v Homophobia Cymru.

“There has been huge progress over the last year for LGBTQ+ inclusion in football with the creation of the Rainbow Wall and other LGBTQ+ fans groups at clubs throughout Wales,” said Jason Webber, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Integrity Manager at the FAW.

“We are excited to be collaborating on this event which will bring together the LGBTQ+ community, allies, fan groups and key stakeholders from across the game.

“We hope that this will become an annual event that will play a key part in our vision of creating a game for everyone, everywhere in Wales.”

Proud Together is a free event and any member of the community wishing to attend can do so by registering HERE.

Julian Winter, Swansea City chief executive added: “We are truly honoured to be part of this and are excited to be the first Welsh club to host this prestigious event.

“We welcome our community to join us for an evening of discussion on how we can continue to make the beautiful game and community one which is inclusive for all.”