Landmark moment for gay footballers gets closer
Former hurdles world champion Colin Jackson has put issue of sexuality in sport back in spotlight, says Tom Cary
There was no animosity towards Jackson, precious little criticism or judgment
Colin Jackson’s decision to reveal yesterday, in an interview with Swedish television, that he was gay prompted a familiar reaction on social media.
There were plenty of tweets of the ‘quelle surprise’ variety – which rather missed the point. A lot of “this isn’t a story” and “does it matter? It’s 2017 for goodness sake?”, which, although wellintentioned, again missed the point.
Clearly it matters or else Jackson would not have felt the need to deny the speculation for so many years, worried by what people – including his parents – might think of him or how such an announcement might affect his career.
A few joked that the most shocking thing about the revelation was that the ridiculously young-looking former hurdler was now 50, which was, indeed, shocking.
What was abundantly clear, though, at least from an initial reading of the blogosphere, was that there was no animosity directed towards Jackson. Precious little criticism or judgment.
With the exception of a couple of tweets accusing him of being “too slow out of the blocks” and of having lacked the courage to make a real difference while he was an active athlete – again, completely unfair – the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with sponsors and campaigners and fellow athletes tripping over themselves to praise the Welshman as an outstanding role model.
It made you wonder – not for the first time – why it is that no Premier League footballer, or, indeed, any full-time professional in this country, has yet come out. It is surely the biggest PR open goal in sport.
Which is not to be flippant about the courage needed to make such an announcement. Of course, there would be significant risk attached.
It will be a brave footballer (or footballers: FA chairman Greg Clarke has said he thinks a group of gay players should come out on the same day) who speaks first. You only need to recall the vicious abuse suffered by Justin Fashanu to appreciate why it is that so many gay footballers remain reluctant to discuss their sexuality. Last year, the LGBT charity Stonewall published research suggesting that 72 per cent of football fans had heard homophobic abuse while watching live sports in the past five years – an increase on a similar survey conducted in 2009.
Clearly, it is easy to call it a PR open goal when you are not the player running out in front of thousands of fans. The terraces at a football match are demonstrably not the same as the stands at a diving meet or a rugby ground.
But to suggest that an openly gay footballer would not receive the same largely positive reaction as that encountered by Tom Daley or Gareth Thomas when they chose to talk about their sexuality is surely outdated.
As Anton Hysen, Europe’s first openly gay footballer, says: “If no one has done it, how do you know England isn’t ready for it? It is insulting to supporters in England to suggest that they’re not ready to support a gay footballer. I maybe got one or two bits of abuse from supporters or players I was up against.”
One senses the landmark moment is drawing ever closer. Footballers are already showing support for the gay community by wearing rainbow laces. There are gay fans’ groups.
One thing is certain: until a footballer does come out as gay, it will continue to be a ‘story’ every time someone such as Colin Jackson says what he did yesterday. However much people