Norwich City Football Club criticised over 'slurs' in Pride film

An LGBTQ+ football supporters group has slammed a club's video supporting Pride month for featuring "homophobic abuse front and centre of content".

The Norwich City Football Club film showed derogatory graffiti on a wall with players throwing paint over it.

Fan club Proud Canaries said viewers were subjected to "a lexicon of slurs" and asked the club to delete the film.

The club said "it was proud of the club's ongoing work to support diversity, equality and inclusion".

The video, posted on social media, includes interviews with players standing next to the wall, with paint later being thrown at the graffiti to cover it up.

Proud Canaries, which had members present during filming, said it had been asked to take part in the making of the film.

The group said it had been led to believe it would record "an upbeat occasion with players and fans alike throwing paint rainbows at a concourse wall to create an inclusive graffiti mural while discussing the negative impact of bigotry".

It said it had not been involved in the editing of the film.

One of the organisers of Proud Canaries, Di Cunningham, said "it's just too much".

"It's in full focus for nearly all of the video - I would have expected them to do blurred cutaways, not that alarmist appalling hatred right in your face."

She said using screenshots of the wall on social media had "far greater reach".

"It has been universally called out," she added, and asked for the club to engage with the group and "put this right".

Proud Canaries released a lengthy statement criticising the club for its "error of judgement", adding that it was "compounded exponentially yesterday with the launch tweet, ironically stating that this language is not OK while platforming it".

In a statement, the club said: "As ever, all at Norwich City are proud of the club's ongoing work to support diversity, equality and inclusion across our players, staff and supporters.

"Throughout recent years the club have had, and continue to have, extensive dialogue with its various fan groups.

"We are determined to continue our work in this area, tackling discrimination in football, supporting difficult conversations and pushing boundaries in making Norwich City a home for everyone."

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]