For any MLS expansion club, especially those launching without a lower-division predecessor, the first home game doubles as a launch event for a nascent fan base.

Coverage in most outlets focuses on a club’s ramp-up through player acquisitions, staff hires and brand launches. New fans undergo their own preparations for an inaugural season. There are chants to draft and rehearse, tifos to craft and supporters groups to launch and lead.

San Diego FC began its first MLS season on the road, shocking the defending champion LA Galaxy with a 2-0 win. The result sent a message all its own, but it also gave their fans even more reason to look forward to their first match at Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday night.

Comparatively, their home debut wasn’t as exciting, with San Diego playing St. Louis City to a scoreless draw. Throughout the match, though, their fans made an unmissable first impression by adopting one of the sport’s ugliest modern traditions.

If you’ve watched a game involving the Mexico men’s national team, you will likely know what this is about. The chant in question, in which fans shout a Spanish, four-letter homophobic slur at the opposing goalkeeper during his run-up to take a goal kick, has been a staple in Mexican soccer for many years. The origin of the chant is disputed, but it nevertheless has persisted across generations of El Tri fans despite CONCACAF and FIFA’s attempts to eradicate it from stadiums with a series of largely ineffective threats.

Now put in a similar position, San Diego issued a statement on Monday denouncing some of their fans’ behavior.

“What took place during our first-ever home match does not reflect who we are as a club or the values we stand for,” the statement opened. “The sport of football brings people together and in San Diego that inclusive spirit thrives. The use of homophobic language in our stadium is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

San Diego’s fans are far from the first to bring the chant into MLS stadia. Over the past decade alone, the league has had to respond to instances involving multiple clubs, including Los Angeles FC, the Galaxy, New York City FC and the San Jose Earthquakes. Each time, the league has put forth a strong opposition, with messages in support of inclusivity often coming directly from commissioner Don Garber.

“In the stands, we collaborate closely with clubs and supporters’ groups to engage and welcome LGBTQ+ communities to our game through Pride matches and other initiatives that emphasize everyone is welcome in MLS,” Garber told Outsports in 2024.

San Diego’s infraction didn’t happen in a vacuum, but that’s no excuse. For the aforementioned clubs, those instances were anomalies from their usual gameday atmosphere. Due to this club’s short tenure to date, the chant is now one of the few established pieces of its fan culture.

The chant didn’t soundtrack every St. Louis goal kick, but that’s largely due to keeper Roman Bürki’s approach. Bürki varied his restarts throughout Saturday’s game, launching exactly half of his 10 goal kicks on the night. For the data junkies among you, here’s the breakdown: none of his five goal kicks that traveled fewer than 30 yards got a loud chant, while all five that exceeded 30 yards were met with it.

Each successive chant was louder than the last — even after San Diego’s stadium announcer issued the following guidance on the fourth such infraction in the 88th minute: “Ladies and gentlemen, discrimination has no place in our sport and in our stadiums, and will not be tolerated. The fan chant that was just used was offensive, and we ask our fans: do NOT continue to use this chant. Thank you.”

The announcer then relayed the same message in Spanish. Nevertheless, fans chanted identically for Bürki’s final launch in the third minute of stoppage time. The announcer’s next message included more severe messaging that closed with an acknowledgement: “This match may be suspended and abandoned if there is continued discrimination.”

At no point during the match did Apple’s broadcasters (the lead MLS commentary team of Jake Zivin and Taylor Twellman) acknowledge the chant or the stadium announcements, both of which were present in the broadcast’s audio with crystal clarity. In fact, Zivin’s play-by-play persisted during the stadium announcement, chronicling the run of play even as the game’s subplot was playing out in real time.

Following the match, San Diego coach Mikey Varas and sporting director Tyler Heaps each denounced the chant. Varas called it “unacceptable” and said “it doesn’t represent the players, myself or the club, and it certainly doesn’t represent San Diego.” Both stressed that it wasn’t a chant adopted by every fan, either.

Heaps added that “obviously, us as a club, we’ll make sure it does not continue into the future.” Of course, that’s far easier said than done.

San Diego is now MLS’s closest market to the border between Mexico and the United States, with Snapdragon Stadium positioned 20 miles to its north, but it is hardly a stranger to professional soccer. The NWSL’s San Diego Wave launched in 2022, while the USL Championship briefly had a club — San Diego Loyal — among its ranks from its 2020 season through the end of 2023.

The Loyal’s four-year existence was cut short as ownership (led by entrepreneur Andrew Vassiliadis and U.S. soccer legend Landon Donovan) struggled to secure land for a team-owned stadium. It also announced its decision to cease operations merely three months after MLS revealed that San Diego would be its 30th franchise, with multiple sources telling The Athletic at the time that San Diego FC’s launch was “a crucial factor” in the USL club’s decision.

In the wake of the chant rearing its ugly head, the MLS club may need to look to the shuttered lower-league organization for guidance.

In spite of such a short tenure, the Loyal made quite an impact on the American soccer landscape. Among its first signings was Collin Martin, a midfielder who, while playing for Minnesota United in 2018, became the second openly gay active player in MLS. In a match against Phoenix Rising late in the 2020 season, Martin was targeted with a homophobic slur from an opposing player.

At the height of lockdown, field-level broadcast microphones could pick up far more than usual. After the halftime whistle blew, cameras and mics caught a Loyal player approaching Phoenix coach Rick Schantz to tell him the slur used by a Rising player. Schantz was caught telling Donovan (who was also the Loyal’s first head coach) that the incident was “part of the game” as players were “competing.” Schantz later said those words were misconstrued, but Donovan responded with visible urgency: “We have to get this out of our game.”

Schantz responded with a visible eye roll; Donovan was clearly distraught by the sequence.

San Diego’s players showed up for the second half kickoff, but chose to walk off the field, turning their 3-1 lead into a 0-3 forfeit. After the game, the club, Martin and Donovan all framed their protest as being in support of something bigger than the game.

Loyal and Rising proactively navigated the aftermath, working with Common Goal to unpack the events using a restorative justice model. They strove to find a more productive way to respond to such infractions, rather than hoping to make change through mandatory 90-minute presentations. By 2023, the model influenced by this event’s aftermath launched a grassroots-driven educational program called Play Proud, which has been adopted and embraced by over a dozen clubs in MLS, the NWSL and the USL.

As Common Goal’s North America lead Lilli Barrett-O’Keefe told The Athletic in early 2021: “When are the soccer clubs and leagues going to step up and say that they’re going to invest in trying to find an innovative way to make that change?”

While San Diego FC launched with a different owner and no direct tie to Loyal, this is a legacy that the MLS expansion club has inherited as the city’s new professional men’s team.

Many fans who supported the USL side are now among the MLS upstart’s ranks, and they will vividly remember what transpired after that 2020 match against Phoenix. Although there are crucial differences between a fan-led chant and an on-field instance of homophobia targeted at a gay athlete, the smaller club’s handling of the latter only increases the spotlight on the MLS side’s reaction in the days and weeks to come.

San Diego FC has a couple of weeks to prepare for its next home match, with the Columbus Crew visiting on March 15. How it handles the potential for another wave of homophobic chants will be scrutinized as closely as any action on the pitch.

The club memorably garnered a mixed reaction upon debuting its crest and brand identity in late 2023, with some fans saying it looked too curated by focus-group guidance rather than establishing a clear visual identity. Others felt it lacked the vibrant array of colors associated with San Diego, a departure from both the Wave and Loyal.

Nevertheless, the crest’s accompanying explainer claimed the design centered on four “principle virtues” that define San Diego: “Gratitude, proud not loud, diversity, and a state of flow.”

Before signing a single player or coach, the club promised to keep diversity at its heart. It was a sentiment that the club doubled down on in the second half of its statement on Monday.

“San Diego FC is built on respect and the belief that soccer is for everyone,” it read. “We are committed to fostering an environment where all fans, players, and staff feel safe and welcome. We will take immediate steps to address this behavior and will communicate a detailed plan prior to the next home match.”