Openly Gay Footballers

[Future17]

Interesting (and quite moving) article written by the late Justin Fashanu's niece. Particularly interesting comments regarding her dad, John (Justin's brother).

Also would like to hear more (for once) from Joey Barton. I'm not sure where he gets the confidence from in predicting "within the next 10 years there will be an openly gay footballer in the professional game".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16722196

[007 Mickey Weir]

Hartley..................

Oh and all Hibs fans seemingly

[Pretty Boy]

It's a strange topic.

On one hand if one or two players 'came out' it may lead to a few more following, the reaction from the fans would be altogether different. I posted a thread on the holy ground forum a while back about attitudes to homosexuality in football and sport in general.and within about 4 posts it had descended into schoolboys giggling and homophobic jokes.

What player in their right mind is going to want to subject themselves to the inevitable immaturity and ignorance of some, not all, football fans.

[Greentinted]

I recall a similar discussion on these boards a couple of years ago and it descended into a bit of a 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink', 'is there anything you want to tell us' kinda thread. And that pretty much explained, in itself, why coming out as homosexual in the footballing environment is difficult.


I am in no way accusing anyone who contributed to that debate as homophobic/bigoted, it is simply an opinion founded on observation.

[bobbyhibs1983]

I dont think it ll matters if your openly gay or not.If your a good player or bad player you should not get judged on if your gay or straight, white or black or anything as trival as that if you get me?


the only thing that slightly annoys me is some gays are so ott you know? im not against people who are gay though just some are like that guy from corrie(i know he s only playing a charater and not sure if he s gay in real life) but he just sorta annoys me,being so camp in your face though not all gay men are like that.

Im sure if any of us were footballers and a teammate was gay i doubt it would borther me

[Pretty Boy]

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I dont think it ll matters if your openly gay or not.If your a good player or bad player you should not get judged on if your gay or straight, white or black or anything as trival as that if you get me?


the only thing that slightly annoys me is some gays are so ott you know? im not against people who are gay though just some are like that guy from corrie(i know he s only playing a charater and not sure if he s gay in real life) but he just sorta annoys me,being so camp in your face though not all gay men are like that.

Im sure if any of us were footballers and a teammate was gay i doubt it would borther me

There's a huge difference between being ott and camp and being gay.

I know a few gay guys who are quiet, reserved individuals. I also know a hell of a lot of straight guys and girls who are loud, ott and camp.

[Andy74]

I don't see it being a big deal, fans and players would just get on with it.

There's no more a problem with homophobia in football than in any other walk of life.

Possibly more opportunity for a bit of winding up from the stands to be fair though.

[CropleyWasGod]

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I don't see it being a big deal, fans and players would just get on with it.

There's no more a problem with homophobia in football than in any other walk of life.

Possibly more opportunity for a bit of winding up from the stands to be fair though.

Just possibly???

Football is the last bastion of old-school macho-ness. The abuse (whether you call it banter, winding up or whatever) from people in the stands and in the street would be enough to keep anyone in the closet.

Honestly, would anyone be brave enough to be the first? It would need to be (like the Welsh rugby captain) someone high-profile and near the end of their career.

[97hills]

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I dont think it ll matters if your openly gay or not.If your a good player or bad player you should not get judged on if your gay or straight, white or black or anything as trival as that if you get me?


the only thing that slightly annoys me is some gays are so ott you know? im not against people who are gay though just some are like that guy from corrie(i know he s only playing a charater and not sure if he s gay in real life) but he just sorta annoys me,being so camp in your face though not all gay men are like that.

Im sure if any of us were footballers and a teammate was gay i doubt it would borther me

Afraid I don't "know".

[neilmartinrocks]

To be brutally honest i would have Graham Norton in the team if he was a decent centre back!!

[Mikeystewart]

I'd like to hope that the magnitude of support from the open minded football fans would drown out the idiots who would give him abuse. 14 years on from the Fashanu tragedy, the UK has at least moved on a bit and I hope the country would rally to support said football player. I stress the word "hope"

I would imagine the media would also jump on the bandwagon of supporting the first footballer since JF to come out, as not doing so would be completely unacceptable in today's society.

[Sir David Gray]

To be perfectly honest, what someone does behind closed doors with other consenting adults is entirely their own business and I don't see why that information needs to be put into the public domain.

I'm not interested in the lifestyles that footballers lead, away from the football pitch, as long as they are law abiding, and I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

[lapsedhibee]

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I would imagine the media would also jump on the bandwagon of supporting the fist footballer since JF to come out, as not doing so would be completely unacceptable in today's society.

That's a deliberate typo, right?

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I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

You must have read something about Ryan "The Worm" Giggs's behaviour, though?

[Pretty Boy]

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To be perfectly honest, what someone does behind closed doors with other consenting adults is entirely their own business and I don't see why that information needs to be put into the public domain.

I'm not interested in the lifestyles that footballers lead, away from the football pitch, as long as they are law abiding, and I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

I agree about having no interest in a footballers sex life.

I think the point most people and the arcticle in question are making is.that a footballer shouldnt have to feel embarrassed or afraid to.be open about their sexuality for fear of abuse. I don't think anyone is advocating intimate details of anyone sex life being habitually revealed, gay or otherwise.

[Ozyhibby]

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To be brutally honest i would have Graham Norton in the team if he was a decent centre back!!

He'd get in our team.

[HFC 0-7]

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I don't see it being a big deal, fans and players would just get on with it.

There's no more a problem with homophobia in football than in any other walk of life.

Possibly more opportunity for a bit of winding up from the stands to be fair though.

Dont think its just at the grounds they would be worried about getting winding up from. Players may be worried about what reaction they would get away from the football grounds as well. They may also be worried about what impacts it has on their families, for their families it could be a case of being known as the brother or sister of a footballer to being the brother or sister of the gay footballer.

Re the point in bold, footballers are in the spotlight all the time. People are always looking for an angle to wind up players and this would make it easy for people so I would say there could be a much bigger problem for a player to 'come out' than most other walks of life.

[HFC 0-7]

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I agree about having no interest in a footballers sex life.

I think the point most people and the arcticle in question are making is.that a footballer shouldnt have to feel embarrassed or afraid to.be open about their sexuality for fear of abuse. I don't think anyone is advocating intimate details of anyone sex life being habitually revealed, gay or otherwise.

I think most fans would agree with this, but the papers wouldnt. Its things like this that would keep players from 'coming out'

[ancient hibee]

I've never understood why well known people feel the necessity to discuss their sexuality-I mean who cares?

[Peevemor]

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I've never understood why well known people feel the necessity to discuss their sexuality-I mean who cares?

I certainly don't - I'm far too busy getting off wi' loadsae burdz.

[jdships]

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To be perfectly honest, what someone does behind closed doors with other consenting adults is entirely their own business and I don't see why that information needs to be put into the public domain.

I'm not interested in the lifestyles that footballers lead, away from the football pitch, as long as they are law abiding, and I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

To each his own surely

[Cropley10]

Football has become more and more PC and there are more laws and more rules than ever before. Being gay used to be a big deal, gay people used to live very different lives, but now, more than ever before, they don't. Gay people can get married, gay people can adopt kids, politicians are openly gay now, so are pop stars and film stars.

There are gay footballers, that much is certain - in fact there was one playing for one of the Edinburgh teams recently. So, what Joey Barton says is absolutely right - it will happen and it should happen, team-mates will know and the Club will know, and all they'll care about is, is he good enough - is he playing well enough, not what he does in his time off.

[Cropley10]

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I've never understood why well known people feel the necessity to discuss their sexuality-I mean who cares?

Come, come - some folk talk about nothing else!

[Carheenlea]

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To be perfectly honest, what someone does behind closed doors with other consenting adults is entirely their own business and I don't see why that information needs to be put into the public domain.

I'm not interested in the lifestyles that footballers lead, away from the football pitch, as long as they are law abiding, and I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

Football players have a high profile in the public domain, and the more openly gay players in that public domain can go a long way to improve tolerance levels towards homosexuals. Hiding behind closed doors is not helpful in the slightest in eradicating footballs embarrasing taboo with homosexuality.

[S.sct]

Football and particularly fans have changed over the past 20 years. Remember the abuse Mark Walters took when becoming the first black player to play in Scotland (particularly at the PBS), I certainly have never heard any racist abuse of any player recently. For me, it would not even register if a Hibs player was homosexual. He would be a Hibs player end of.....

[Beefster]

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I dont think it ll matters if your openly gay or not.If your a good player or bad player you should not get judged on if your gay or straight, white or black or anything as trival as that if you get me?


the only thing that slightly annoys me is some gays are so ott you know? im not against people who are gay though just some are like that guy from corrie(i know he s only playing a charater and not sure if he s gay in real life) but he just sorta annoys me,being so camp in your face though not all gay men are like that.

Im sure if any of us were footballers and a teammate was gay i doubt it would borther me

The two campest men that I've ever know were straight. One of them was married with kids.

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

To be perfectly honest, what someone does behind closed doors with other consenting adults is entirely their own business and I don't see why that information needs to be put into the public domain.

I'm not interested in the lifestyles that footballers lead, away from the football pitch, as long as they are law abiding, and I have absolutely no interest at all in finding out revelations about a footballer's sex life.

I don't understand the bit in bold. If I tell you that I'm straight, what am I revealing about my sex life beyond the sex of my partners?

[SloopJB]

Are there any openly heterosexual footballers?

[SquashedFrogg]

Calum Elliot?

[heidtheba]

I can't find the link (and I know most people on here are waaaay more informed than I am about footballers) but there was an article years ago in one paper about the treatment of Greame Le Saux. He read the Guardian and was accused of being gay but didn't want to deny it (IIRC) as clearly as others would, for fear of offending people who were gay. His treatment was horrendous -Andy Townsend being one particular name which comes to mind.
Sad state of affairs.

[Holmesdale Hibs]

I really don't care whether a footballer is gay or not, it doesn't bother me at all and I think the majority of football fans (and the general public) would feel the same.

However, I think there would be a minority of fans who would use it to use it as an excuse to give a player abuse, it's probably comparable to racism 20 years ago. It'll probably take a few players to come out and get abuse from a few ****ers before its accepted by everyone, as opposed to a vast majority which it is now.

Just thinking of the abuse our own players receive from a minority in the crowd, I'm sure if one of them was gay then there would be a few extra words added to the string of abuse.

[son of haggart]

I arrived about 4 days early for the Atletico Madrid Hearts game back in the early 90s (I was possibly the only person in the world who bought a hoover and got a free flight, and by an amazing piece of serendipidity I bought a ticket to madrid and Hearts were drawn there a few days later)


I met a few guys day before the game who had been on the official flight. They described the players getting stuck into the free flight booze (good old days) and playing 3 card brag. Fashanu was on his own up the front in a pin stripe suit reading the financial times.

There was very little homophobia from the fans towards him, some abuse because he was a crap player. As a black gay catholic he had the lot for the numbskulls but I think it was too much for them and they couldn't work out which one to go for.

I do think that Andy74 is way wrong and that most football teams would be far more reacionary to gay player than the average response in other areas of society. Having played for about 20 years there wasn't much tolerance in the dressing rooms and I don't remember anyone feelign comfortable about coming out though undoubtedly a few of my teammates were gay.