When I played for the Matildas at FIFA’s first women’s tournament in 1988, it was beyond contemplation that a wealthy tourism authority might pay an eye-popping amount to buy the attention of the audience watching us. That audience, by the way, was several thousand Chinese schoolchildren.

Now FIFA is planning to make Visit Saudi a sponsor of the Women’s World Cup. Apparently, the audience is ripe for harvest, and commanding a handsome price.

I have no quibble with an overdue correction to the longstanding undervaluation of women’s sports fans. They are younger, funkier, more values-driven, more loyal and more digital savvy than the average Joe Sixpack in the stands or on the couch.

They create a vibe quite distinct from men’s football. It’s safe, inclusive and non-violent – nowhere better demonstrated than in the European Championship finals held at Wembley in England a year apart. The men’s crowd descended into chaos and hostility; the women’s final – with an even bigger crowd – had zero fan problems.

After the match, rival English and German fans told jokes and held singing contests as they waited in nightclub queues, urged on by otherwise redundant security guards. Weirdly, the gender of those playing the game seemed to have an outsize effect on the conduct of those watching.

Perhaps this is because fans of women’s football know, and deeply feel, a sense of safety, purpose and belonging around the sport they love. In particular, there will be many LGBTQ+ players and fans at the Women’s World Cup for whom football is a place where they can express themselves. Many more will be watching from afar, seeing players like Sam Kerr and Megan Rapinoe being awesome, adored and gay – all at the same time – in a team that accepts them for who they are.

If any of those fans are watching from Saudi Arabia, they will be living with grave risks. The most recent State-Sponsored Homophobia Report by ILGA World – which campaigns for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex human rights – lists Saudi Arabia as a country where, “We have full legal certainty that the death penalty is the legally prescribed punishment for consensual same-sex sexual acts”.

For FIFA to tell LGBTQ players and fans they should “Visit Saudi” is to send them to a jurisdiction where they are regarded as criminals (and where all women face seriously restricted rights, notwithstanding recent encouraging progress). FIFA would be selling them into persecution. It’s hard to imagine a greater mismatch for the unique and valuable audience the women’s game has accrued.