Quote Originally Posted by Zenith View Post
Not that it matters but in recent times (post 2000) the only footballer I believe to have come out publicly, who has played in the top 4 divisions is Robbie Rogers; who then announced retirement shortly after. This was only brief and he went back to play in the MLS (and still is).

I feel sorry for the fact that someone will be scrutinised for being a human being, for god sake, why should they get hammered for their personal life? We've got brain dead fans in our game who would ruin the reputation of all fans if a player came out to the public.

If I was a professional footballer who happened to be gay I wouldn't make it public either. No way would I want to deal with the additional pressures and anxiety everyday for being myself.
As someone who is old enough to remember the time when homosexuality was illegal, I can't help thinking you are right there. Good on the youth of today, because they genuinely do seem to have a couldn't care less attitude when it comes to someone's sexuality and Id like to think that, as someone who generally has a live and let live attitude to individual freedoms, I'm close to that as well.

However, all of those camp caricatures I grew up watching when a comedian. or in some cases a serious actor, went into "gay mode" in the 60s and 70s did have an impact on me to the extent that, with someone like Gareth Thomas, when I think of him now, I don't think of him as being a former Wales rugby player, but as someone who has come out - don't get me wrong, I'm not bothered at all about him being gay, but it does seem more relevant to me than it should be.

So, if someone like me, who I would place on the tolerant end of thinking in my age group when it comes to LGBT matters, can think like that, it seems to me that those on the other end of the spectrum would not be backward in coming forward in letting any footballer in an opposing team know exactly what they thought of him if he had come out as being gay - given the tribal nature of football support, I think it might be that an openly gay player may be accepted more easily than he/she may think by their team's supporters though.

I'd like to think that one big name footballer admitting they were gay could produce a domino effect as others followed and, in such a case, I don't believe it would take too long before any reaction to them would fade, but, looking at Gareth Thomas' original sport or the one he ended up playing, it's hardly as if his coming out prompted others to do so - I found one high profile player in either code in this country who is openly gay when I Googled "gay rugby players".

So, while it's easy to, rightly, single out football for being behind most other sports when it comes to acceptance of gay players, it's hardly as if other leading sports in this country (in cricket, Steve Davies' public admission to being gay in 2011 has not seen many, if any, players follow his example yet) are beacons of tolerance either - there are still far, far more high profile sportsmen and women in the closet than out of it even in these more enlightened times surely?