Australian Football Cuts Ties With Brunei Airlines

The Sultan of Brunei is losing a lot of friends thanks to his new law that legalizes the stoning of gay people — the Australian Football League is close to ending a sponsorship deal with Royal Brunei Airlines because of the harsh Sharia law.

The sultan's luxury hotels are already being boycotted from London to Los Angeles, and now AFL Europe is telling Royal Brunei Airlines to beat it; the sponsorship pact was AFL Europe's largest such partnership. The AFL was encouraged to cut ties with Brunei following a Twitter campaign led by the global LGBT advocacy group All Out.

"We applaud the Australian Football League for this courageous move," Andre Banks, All Out's co-founder and executive director, said in a statement. "This is a game changer in the push against Brunei's proposal to mandate inhuman punishments like stoning, whipping and amputation for being gay and other offences. The AFL has taken a strong stand against homophobia today that shows the Sultan of Brunei that killing people because of who they are is not only wrong ­ it's very bad for business."

AFL was one of many Aussie athletic organizations to recently condemn homophobia in sports.