It's our village. When you leave your home and start from zero, you need to belong.
Brazucats, founded in 2020, now has 100+ members playing futsal and providing mutual support across professional and personal challenges. Members express concern about FIFA's rainbow armband ban and Qatar's criminalization of homosexuality, highlighting soccer's ongoing exclusion of LGBTQ communities.
- Brazucats founded in 2020, now has 100+ members from Brazil, Argentina, Trinidad & Tobago, and beyond
- Members play futsal (five-a-side indoor soccer) every Sunday during winter
- Approximately 80% of the team identifies as LGBTQ
- Pink Turf Soccer League, a safe space for gay women, has grown to 250+ members since 1985
- 2026 World Cup will be co-hosted by Canada, United States, and Mexico
A Brazilian soccer academy in Toronto has become a thriving community for LGBTQ women and non-binary players, offering both athletic competition and social belonging away from global soccer's discriminatory practices.
Walk into a nondescript grey industrial building in Etobicoke and you might miss it entirely. But step through the door and the space transforms—bright blues, yellows, and greens announce themselves. The ceiling bristles with flags: Brazil's, yes, but also the standards of every nation at the World Cup. This is the Brazilian Soccer Academy, and it has become something its founders never quite anticipated: a sanctuary.
Two years ago, Katherine Di Pace founded a soccer club called Brazucats after immigrating to Canada from Recife, Brazil in 2017. She came to study, applied for permanent residency, and realized she couldn't live without the game. She found women on Facebook who felt the same way. They kicked a ball around. Then they formalized it. Now Brazucats has more than 100 members—women and non-binary players from Brazil, Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, and beyond. Every Sunday during winter, they gather to play futsal, the five-a-side indoor version that shaped Neymar and Ronaldinho.
But the soccer is almost beside the point. "It's our village," says Fabricia Monteiro, who plays alongside her wife, Carolina D'Agostini. Both sit on the club's executive. When you leave home and start from zero in a new country, Monteiro explains, you need more than a place to play. You need people who understand your professional struggles, who help you live fully beyond the sport. You need to belong somewhere.
Much of the team identifies as LGBTQ, and right now, their attention is fixed on Qatar. The World Cup is happening in a country where being gay is illegal. FIFA banned the OneLove armband—the rainbow captain's band that players like England's Harry Kane wanted to wear. Di Pace tried to find one. She couldn't. So she tied a rainbow flag around her bicep instead. "I think 80 per cent of the team are queer," she says. Ana Oliveira, one of her teammates, calls the armband ban an act of suppression. It's 2022, she says, and she won't go to Qatar. Not because she doesn't love soccer—she does—but because it's a safety issue. A place that doesn't welcome her.
Oliveira was born in the Azores, moved to Canada in 1990, and is now a citizen. She cheers for Canada at the World Cup, but Portugal will always be first in her heart. This year, though, she's torn. "I feel like kind of a hypocrite," she admits, "because you know these things are happening and it's not right, you don't agree with it. But then you're watching it because you love the sport." She also plays in the Pink Turf Soccer League, which started in 1985 as a safe space for gay women and now has more than 250 members across the LGBTQ spectrum. But futsal—the "tic-tac-toe" version—is her favourite. It's the more beautiful way to play. More than that, though, it's the safety. Being queer, playing soccer, doing what you love, and knowing you belong. That's priceless.
The Brazilian Soccer Academy opened in 2010, but only recently expanded beyond boys' and men's teams. Brazucats arrived two years ago. An under-14 girls' team followed. The pandemic accelerated the shift. Raphael Da Silva, the facility's founder and co-owner, saw the numbers: girls drop out of sports after age 12 at alarming rates. He wanted to change that. In Brazucats—members aged 28 to 43—younger players can see what a lifetime in soccer looks like. They can see role models. Di Pace talks about Marta, the World Cup legend from Brazil. That matters. That shapes who you become.
The past two World Cups have been difficult for LGBTQ fans and players. In Russia four years ago, a diversity house meant to provide safe space was forcibly closed. In Qatar, a World Cup ambassador called homosexuality "damage in the mind." But 2026 is coming. The World Cup will be in North America—Canada, the United States, and Mexico as co-hosts. For the first time in recent memory, there's a chance to show what true inclusion looks like. Brazucats will be ready. Some are already counting down. "Soccer is the world's sport," Monteiro says, "and then we're going to have the chance to pay back in 2026. I am pretty sure that's going to be the happiest, gayest World Cup that you're ever going to see."
Notable Quotes
It's our village. When you leave your home and you go to another country, you start from zero. Here we find a lot of different resources, people who can help you in your professional life, who can help people enjoy a lot of things beyond sports.— Fabricia Monteiro, Brazucats player and executive
Soccer is the world's sport and then we're going to have the chance to pay back in 2026. I am pretty sure that's going to be the happiest, gayest World Cup that you're ever going to see.— Fabricia Monteiro, on the 2026 World Cup in North America
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a futsal club in an industrial building in Etobicoke matter enough to tell this story?
Because it's not really about futsal. It's about what happens when people who've been made to feel unwelcome everywhere else find each other and build something that says: you belong here, exactly as you are.
Katherine Di Pace started this because she missed soccer. That's a pretty personal reason. Did it surprise her that it became this?
I think she knew what she was looking for—community, not just a game. She found women on Facebook who felt the same hunger. Once you have that, it grows. A hundred members doesn't happen by accident.
The timing is interesting. They're playing while the World Cup is happening in Qatar, where being gay is illegal. How does that land for them?
It's a contradiction they're living inside. They love soccer more than almost anything. But they're watching a tournament in a place that would criminalize them. Ana Oliveira said it perfectly: she feels like a hypocrite. But she watches anyway, because the sport matters that much.
The rainbow armband ban seems to have hit them hard.
It did. Di Pace wanted to wear one. Couldn't find it. So she tied a flag around her arm instead. It's a small act, but it says something: we're here, we're visible, we're not going to disappear just because FIFA says we can't speak.
What does 2026 mean to them?
It's hope. For the first time, the World Cup will be in a place where they can actually go, where they won't be criminalized, where they might see themselves reflected in the tournament itself. Monteiro said it: the happiest, gayest World Cup ever. That's not hyperbole. That's what they're waiting for.
Is this story about soccer, or is it about something else?
It's about what happens when you create a space where people don't have to hide. The soccer is the vessel. The real story is the village they built.