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by pmyteh 2875 days ago
It's absolutely LGBT-phobic. Do you know how many out gay professional footballers there are in the UK? Zero. Because the atmosphere around sexuality in professional football is sufficiently toxic that very few people are willing to come out before they retire.

These things can change. Thirty years ago black players had bananas thrown at them on the pitch. After a lot of work, racism is now rare at football grounds, and generally stamped on when it appears. We could do the same with anti-gay slurs too, if we cared enough.
1 comments
Uberphallus 2875 days ago
Justin Fashanu [0] is a counter example. He came out in 1991(!). I don't see how it's a problem now when it wasn't back then. That said, it's the fandom that's rotten, not the players and the industry itself.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu

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pmyteh 2875 days ago
"It gives me goosebumps to think of Jason Collins' decision and the way it has been received so positively," Justin's niece, Amal Fashanu, told Yahoo! Sports on Wednesday. Amal, who was only 8 years old when her uncle died, made an award-winning documentary about him for the BBC last year.

"Justin didn't have any of that," she continued. "None of the warmth, none of the recognition that what he did took so much courage. Instead, he was picked on because of it, made to feel inferior, different, wrong. He was a lost soul, but even then his precedent secretly gave a lot of people hope. I get messages about what an inspiration he was from all around the world, all the time."

[...]

Soccer players learn to develop the ability to block out the taunts of the fans, even the most sickening and bigoted vitriol. But what stung Fashanu the most were the comments of his brother John, himself a leading pro who would twice play for the England national team. John Fashanu described Justin as an "outcast" after his revelations about his sexuality, bemoaning the fact that he (John) would be the focus of extra attention from jeering fans as a result of Justin coming out.

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/soccer--before-jason-collins--...

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Uberphallus 2875 days ago
> Soccer players learn to develop the ability to block out the taunts of the fans, even the most sickening and bigoted vitriol. But what stung Fashanu the most were the comments of his brother John

They also block trash talk from other players, arguably because it's part of the game. Fans though can be extremely shitty, ignoring them takes much more effort. But I didn't know about the story with his brother. In the end it shows what I'm saying: if you're homosexual and another player calls you a fag, you call him shitgobbler and move on, it's game. If a fan does, it takes a higher toll, after a while it just becomes noise. But when it's your own brother, damn.

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