A conservative application of the most recent Office for National Statistics survey on sexual orientation suggests that one in 40 men in the UK identify as gay. There are roughly 2,300 men playing for the 92 Football League clubs in England. This would suggest that around 57 of them might be gay.
Yet not a single man currently playing professional football in our leagues has come out as such. This is an uncomfortable fact that poses a broad and disquieting question: are we really as evolved as we think we are?
This is a pertinent subject this week as former American basketball player, Jason Collins, died of brain cancer at the age of 47. It was in 2013 that Collins, in a first-person piece for Sports Illustrated, stunned the world of sport with the following words: “I’m a 34-year-old NBA centre. I’m Black. And I’m gay.”
At the time, he was the first professional basketball player to come out in public, and was seen as a history-maker, a trailblazer, a beacon of inclusivity, someone who had opened a door that would allow other sportsmen who’d lived a secret life to walk through.
He was lauded throughout the world of sport for his honesty and bravery. Kobe Bryant, one of the all-time great basketball players, said at the time that he was “proud” of Collins. He tweeted: “Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others.” And this was the Kobe Bryant who, two years earlier, had been fined $100,000 for using a homophobic slur that was audible on national TV. For additional context, Collins’s coming out was two years before the United States legalised gay marriage.
But his revelation did not presage a torrent. Far from it. Homosexuality in men’s sport is still a taboo subject, the locker room remaining the redoubt of naked (in all senses) masculinity, and homophobia has endured as part of “jock” culture. Only a trickle of likewise declarations in professional sport followed Collins. He died this week, 13 years later, not having seen a single other male basketball player come out as gay.
Today, there is not one openly gay athlete active in the major leagues of American sports, and the four divisions of the English Football League are the same. We regard ourselves as a tolerant, inclusive society, and yet here is one important part of our life as a nation where, it seems, people just cannot be themselves.
Of course, no one should feel pressured to reveal something as intensely personal as their sexuality. However, we should still recognise that, while homophobia is rife within all strata of English football – the FA reported a near 20 per cent increase in allegations of sexual orientation discrimination at the grassroots level for the 2023/24 season – there is a cultural issue that needs calling out.
Notwithstanding Premier League players parading their rainbow laces, the adoption of Pride messaging at grounds, greater prominence of LGBT supporters’ groups and the authorities spending vast amounts promoting inclusivity, there are still so few examples of active players coming out.
When Justin Fashanu became the first footballer to come out in 1990, he was subject to horrific abuse at the time, tragically taking his own life eight years later. Former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger – who came out after retiring – wrote in his autobiography that a homophobic comment in a West Ham dressing room was enough to make him conceal his sexuality for the rest of his playing career. And then there are the terraces, where you can still hear homophobic (and racist) epithets dished out.
Somewhere in the English Football League right now, there are almost certainly gay players hiding in plain sight, not ready, or equipped, or even inclined, to make the step that Collins or Fashanu did. They may read the tributes to Collins this week, and wonder whether it’s worth the trouble, that privacy might, in the end, be better, and safer, than visibility.
Some may say it’s curious, some may say it’s a statistical anomaly, and others might conclude it’s a disgrace. But the fact that there is no active, openly gay player in the English leagues, an out-and-proud role model who would make others feel less isolated, suggests there is indeed a problem that casts the culture of our national game in a deeply unflattering light.
The door that Jason Collins sought to open across the Atlantic is still firmly shut here. The sorry conclusion must be that, no, we are not as evolved as we thought we were.
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