Clubs and Agents Share Blame for the Lack of ‘out’ footballers

Jonny Payne
pinkpaper.com   

The lack of ‘out’ gay footballers is due to pressure from clubs and agents to keep their sexuality a secret, not the abuse from fans, new research has suggested.

According to a survey of 3,500 fans carried out by Staffordshire University and published in the Journal of Sport & Social Issues, more than 90% of football fans would be happy to see a player come out, while 40% believe clubs and agents are to blame, the Independent reports.

Author of the study, Professor Ellis Cashmore said: “Football’s gay players have been reluctant to come out. Their reasons for remaining silent lie inside the football industry rather than in the crowds. Most fans are embarrassed by the popular conception of football as a homophobic environment. It is an impression, they believe, maintained by a code of silence orchestrated and enforced by agents and clubs.”

Paul Miller of the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association agreed with the findings. “We know of gay and bisexual players being advised to remain in the closet by their agents fearing the effect it would have on their ‘saleability’ in the transfer market,” he told The Independent.

But Bury and Nigeria footballer Efe Sodje disagrees, saying a fear of abuse from fans is to blame. “If anybody’s going to come out it might be the fans who give him a hard time – not his own fans. It will be the away fans when they find out,” he said. 

Mel Stein, chairman of the Association of Football Agents, also dismissed the findings. “It is utter nonsense to suggest that a sports agent would place any pressure on a client confirming or denying or concealing his sexual status. 

“In the 21st century I think that a heterosexual affair would be far more damaging to a player’s image than any acknowledgement of a player’s homosexuality as far as sponsors were concerned.”

While the Premier League has confirmed there are gay people in the industry, Justin Fashanu remains the only professional football to have publicly revealed his homosexuality. The former Norwich and Nottingham Forest star committed suicide in 1998 after his career as a top-level player was damaged following the revelations.