Pride Week 2022: The freedom to be yourself

Pride Week 2022: The freedom to be yourself

The annual Pride Week has kicked off in Copenhagen: a week of visible focus on diversity, inclusion, human rights and not least the LGBTQIA+ community.

In 2019, FC Nordsjælland went a step further and presented specially designed white playing suits with rainbow-coloured details, which helped them raise awareness of the message – and were subsequently auctioned off. In 2020, Covid-19 tied up the leagues, but they repeated the success in 2021, with August games once again on the schedule.

So it’s only natural for them to be back again this year with a brand new set of games – and a campaign that supports Pride 2022’s official theme of FREEDOM. The women’s players will wear the specially designed jersey for the home match against Brøndby IF on Saturday 20 August, while the men’s players will do the same against Silkeborg IF on Sunday 21 August at Right to Dream Park.

Afterwards, the club will auction the players’ match jerseys and donate the money to Børns Vilkår and BørneTelefonen, which each year have hundreds of conversations with children and young people about gender identity and sexuality – and not least in general about the freedom to be oneself. In addition, DKK 100 will go the same way for every Pride shirt sold in the Club’s Shop. The Pride jersey is produced in a limited number, which can be purchased in the Shop at Right to Dream Park.

“Freedom can come in many different forms – and it can be very different what it means to each individual – but there are some clear and fundamental values in FC Nordsjælland that we always strive to live by. This means, among other things, that we work every day to include and optimise the meeting between people and our differences – and that you should have the freedom to be yourself.”

“We have a fundamental belief in developing young people athletically as well as humanly, and much of the work at the club is built around making a difference to people both in and around our environments. For example, we constantly seek to create a safe environment for the young people in our academies, and for the same reason there are several departments within the organisation dedicated to this work – helping us with our aim of being more than just a traditional football club.”

Trine Hesselund Hopp Møller, Co-CEO of FC Nordsjælland

The Pride 2022 jersey

This year’s campaign supports the official theme of Pride Week 2022, FREEDOM. Therefore, this time the rainbow colours have been moved from the back numbers to the front and given them space on the chest in the form of six stripes, representing the six letters of the very word freedom.