UEFA has rejected a call from activists to convert the Allianz Arena in Munich into a rainbow-covered light scheme in unison with protests ahead of Germany’s final European Championship group game with Hungary that it is slated to host on Wednesday.

The city council’s proposal was rejected by Europe’s governing soccer body after a ruling cited the effort’s political motivations as the reasoning behind the denial.

Activists are looking to shed light on the recent passage of a bill they say is meant to target LGBTQ education in Hungary’s public school system. The Herzog and de Meuron-designed stadium would have joined other Bundesliga pitches across the country in a show of solidarity that will now be expressed by fans inside the stadium, at Town Hall, and on the city’s nearby Olympiaturm as support for the protest grows.

“We in Munich certainly won’t let ourselves be discouraged from sending a clear signal to Hungary and the world,” Mayor Dieter Reiter said, calling UEFA’s decision “shameful” and “very disappointing.” 

The arena has been lit up in the past in support of Europe’s annual Christopher Street Day festival, which called for a transformation of the structure’s inflated ETFE cushion skin into a digitally illuminated rainbow flag that also highlighted the architect’s original intent for the building to serve as a kind of luminescent “urban monument.”  

A petition effort is likewise gaining momentum online in response to the decision, which the city hall application characterized as representing “a new mark in the invisibility and disenfranchisement of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex people,” claiming the new legislation “adds to the systematic restriction of the rule of law and fundamental freedoms that have been practiced for years in Hungary.” 

The match will continue as planned and will include a visible protest from fans who will file into the Shakespeare-inspired crater seating before the scheduled 7:00 UTC start time tomorrow.