World Cup director warns rainbow flags could be taken away from supporters

Rainbow flags could be taken off fans at the World Cup in Qatar to protect them from being attacked for promoting gay rights, a senior leader overseeing security for the tournament told The Associated Press.

Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Al Ansari insisted that LGBTQ couples would be welcomed and accepted in Qatar for the Nov. 21-Dec. 18 FIFA showpiece despite same-sex relations remaining criminalised in the conservative Gulf nation.

But Al Ansari is against the overt promotion of LGBTQ freedoms as symbolised by the rainbow flag that FIFA and World Cup organisers had previously said would be welcome across Qatar's eight stadiums.

«If he [a fan] raised the rainbow flag and I took it from him, it's not because I really want to, really, take it, to really insult him, but to protect him,» Al Ansari told the AP. «Because if it's not me, somebody else around him might attack [him]… I cannot guarantee the behaviour of the whole people. And I will tell him: 'Please, no need to really raise that flag at this point.'»

Al Ansari is director of the Department of International Cooperation and Chairman of the National Counterterrorism Committee at the Ministry of Interior where he discussed World Cup planning for an hour with the AP.

«You want to demonstrate your view about the [LGBTQ] situation, demonstrate it in a society where it will be accepted,» he said. «We realise that this man got the ticket, comes here to watch the game, not to demonstrate, a political [act] or something which is in his mind.

»Watch the game. That's good. But don't really come in and insult the whole society because of this."

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said this week in Doha that «everyone will see that everyone is welcome here in Qatar, even if we