Before entering the scene as Ramon, Irandhir Santos, 47, put on the headphones and listened to the voices of the fans recorded by him at Arena do Grêmio, in Porto Alegre. The trips to the stadium were preparation for the character in the series recorded in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul between October and November, telling the story of the first LGBTQIAPN+ fans in Brazil: Coligay.
In the fans’ corner of 2025, the actor looked for what moved the fans in 1977, in the midst of the military dictatorship, facing stares, insults, and even episodes of violence – which led them to learn karate for self-defense – to encourage the gaucho tricolor.
A fan of Sport Recife and a regular at Ilha do Retiro, he was attracted by the story linking LGBT experiences to football, a “masculine, heteronormative and sexist” environment. “Going to the field gives me this double feeling. I go for a passion, football, but this type of prejudiced behavior permeates. I could just come back sad because my team lost, but we come back sad because we realize that things didn’t work out, right?”
The idea for “Coligay – a Torcida Impossível”, series and film for Canal Brasil, was based on the book “Coligay – Tricolor e de Todas as Cores” (Libretos, 2014), by Léo Gerchmann. “It’s important to tell the story today, remembering that these achievements are very recent and, therefore, very fragile”, said Patrícia Corso, one of the screenwriters.
According to data from the STJD (Superior Court of Sports Justice), 34 cases of “discrimination of a homophobic nature” have been judged since 2022, with results including suspension, loss of field command and fines. Palmeiras striker Vitor Roque recently made a deal after publishing an image of a tiger hunting a deer after the derby against São Paulo. He said it was “a joke, no malice”.
Last week, introduced as coach of Internacional, Abel Braga said: “I don’t want my damn team training with pink shirts, it looks like a team of deer.” Faced with the negative repercussions, he apologized.
The record number of cases recorded by the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Football – which started to observe different cases of prejudice, not just racial ones – in its reports was 39 records in 2022. Last year, according to a still unpublished report, there were 24 cases.
“We didn’t talk about homophobia in football, homophobic insults were folklore. From the fight against racism, the movement began to organize itself, to see that there was also homophobia, and this began to be denounced”, said Marcelo Carvalho, director of the Observatory.
The Coletivo de Torcidas Canarinhos LGBTQ+ makes complaints of this type and brings together 23 fans from 21 Brazilian clubs, none of them from the Gre-Nal duo. Internacional, Grêmio’s rival, tried theirs, but the initiative was disbanded after pressure, according to Onã Rudá, founder of the group.
“Homophobic chants are more common, but we have insults uttered by athletes, members of the technical committee, managers, even referees”, declared he, also founder of LGBTricolor do Bahia. “The fans are the people at the forefront, they are the kids who are going for the first time, who perhaps haven’t yet had contact with the LGBT issue. Football allows us to bring it to the forefront in an even broader way.”
In September, when Grêmio beat Vitória at home, Felipe Rodrigues dos Santos, 33, and Renan Barbosa Salgado, 25, shared a photo of a kiss on X, around the Arena. “Coming to the stadium today, for the first time together, was the classic hell of having to spend two hours without showing any affection,” wrote Felipe.
“The world has changed, I think being gay today is calmer, but they say that the stadium is a mirror of society, and it is still a very hostile terrain”, he observed. “In the case of homophobic chants, I abstract, I don’t sing, I think about what I can do. I feel like a lost war.”
“[Abstrair] it’s a form of protection”, said Renan, who works in the Coligay series. “I would like to live this with more freedom, because we live Grêmio together, it was one of the things that enchanted me about Felipe. I’m very happy experiencing Grêmio at the stadium with him.”
‘We are Coligay’
Coligay was the idea of Volmar Santos, a Grêmio fan and owner of the Coliseu nightclub, to try to lift the warm stands he saw at the games. To do this, he called on the locals. Grêmio was going through a title drought. In the approximately six years that the fans lasted, it was hot – from the 1977 state title to the memorable 1983, with the victory of the Libertadores and the World Cup.
Even so, the story of the charanga that made the carnival stand was treated for years as a legend by Grêmio fans and mockery by Colorado fans. Her rescue is about ten years old. A member of Geral, the biggest Grêmio fans, who preferred not to be identified, said that many see it as a symbol of the club, others as insignificant – that the important thing is to support Grêmio –, and that others don’t like it, because the world of fans is still homophobic.
“As some were uncomfortable, no one touched on the subject. With the book, it became a serious issue. I think it is a beautiful and eternal page. It was important at that moment, continues to be and always will be”, said Gerchmann, author of the work on which the series is based.
“Today we perceive a dispute because there is a politicization that is also welcomed by the clubs, which was not the case before”, pointed out Luiza Aguiar dos Anjos, author of “Plumas, Arquibancadas e Paetês – uma História da Coligay” (Dolores Editora, 2022). “Coligay has a sense of positive representation, it brings a counterpoint that things are not so black and white, that there is resistance and that something like this has already been possible.”
At 77 years old, Volmar lives in Passo Fundo, his hometown, around 280 kilometers from Porto Alegre. According to him, the history of the fans “is very important” and there are people wanting another Coligay. The protagonist of the series is based on him, although he does not bear his name. According to Corso, the script has dramatic changes. The launch is scheduled for the second half of 2026.
One of the scenes was recorded in front of the arches of the Olympic stadium, empty since the club moved to the Arena in 2012. On a visit to the old tricolor house, now deteriorated, Irandhir walked through the stands where Coligay lived much of its history. At the top, near a sector she once occupied, a graffiti still says “Coligay lives”.
“When this story is seen, what it may bring up for discussion is how much we have regressed or advanced. That is my main reason for being here,” said the actor.
