Homosexuality is ‘damage in the mind’, says World Cup ambassador

The official Fifa World Cup Countdown Clock is in place in Doha (Nariman El-Mofty/AP)

An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as “damage in the mind”, just two weeks before the opening of the football tournament in the Gulf state.

Former Qatari footballer Khalid Salman told a German public broadcaster that being gay is “haram”, or forbidden in Arabic, and that he has a problem with children seeing gay people.