An ambassador for the World Cup in Qatar has described homosexuality as "damage in the mind".
The tournament is two weeks away from starting but has faced increasing criticism for human rights violations against workers and the Qatari attitude towards women and LGBT people.
In a new interview, one of the ambassadors for the tournament has said that people will "have to accept our rules here,"
Ex-Qatari footballer Khalid Salman told a German public broadcaster being gay is "haram", or forbidden in Arabic.
"During the World Cup, many things will come here to the country. Let's talk about gays," he said.
"The most important thing is, everybody will accept that they come here. But they will have to accept our rules."
"(Homosexuality) is haram. You know what haram (forbidden) means?" he added.
When asked why it was haram, Salman said: "I am not a strict Muslim but why is it haram? Because it is damage in the mind."
There have been calls for people to boycott the World Cup due to Qatar's stance on gay rights.
A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently claimed that security forces in Qatar have been arresting and abusing LGBT Qataris recently.
HRW said it had spoken to six LGBT Qataris, including four transgender women, a bisexual woman and one gay man, who reported being detained between 2019 and 2022.
They said they had been detained without charge in an underground prison in Doha and subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including kicking and punching.
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