FIFA President Awaits Russian Answer on Anti-Gay Law

FIFA President Awaits Russian Answer on Anti-Gay Law

(AP) Blatter awaits Russian answer on anti-gay law
By GRAHAM DUNBAR
AP Sports Writer
ULRICHEN, Switzerland
FIFA President Sepp Blatter says that within days he expects Russia, the 2018 World Cup host, to clarify its law prohibiting gay “propaganda.”

Blatter tells The Associated Press that the office of President Vladimir Putin has “promised to me that they will send all these documents in the first days of September.”

Blatter asked Switzerland’s embassy in Moscow “to help us to obtain the correct versions.”

Russia’s law prohibiting promotion of “nontraditional” sexual relations to minors has provoked an international furor leading to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. FIFA joined the IOC in asking Russia if athletes and fans face discrimination.

Blatter, who is an IOC member, says he sought “evidence that you are protecting somebody and not discriminating.”

FIFA legal statutes state that discrimination is “punishable by suspension or expulsion.”

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