Time for change LET’S MAKE FASHANU’S BRAVERY REALLY COUNT
JUSTIN FASHANU was hailed a ‘trailblazer’ last week after finding himself in the headlines for all the right reasons. Fashanu has been inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame in Manchester. Not before time. Remembering Fashanu is poignant. Last week would have been his 59th birthday while next year will be the 30th anniversary of him becoming Britain’s first £1million black footballer following his move from Norwich to Nottingham Forest.
The first thing that springs to mind when remembering Fashanu is the fact he was the first professional footballer to come out as gay and someone who went on to die from suicide eight years later. Being black and homosexual in 1990 must have been a hard place to be for Fashanu.
His big-money move to Forest did
WAYNE ROONEY’S longevity is becoming one of the most remarkable aspects of his equally remarkable career.
On Friday night Rooney scored a cheeky Panenka from the spot in his 500th league appearance make him a trailblazer, but the passing of time has gone on to prove that him having the bravery to reveal his sexuality hasn’t.
The definition of a ‘trailblazer’ is someone who blazes a trail for others to follow. A pathfinder, someone who gives others the courage to walk in their shoes.
But if Fashanu thought his coming out would open the floodgates in English football he was sadly mistaken.
If he’s up there looking down, he will be shaking his head in utter despair.
As it stands, there currently isn’t an openly gay footballer in the top two tiers of English football – and since Thomas Hitzlsperger announced he was gay following his retirement in 2013, having finished his career at Everton, not one single player in the top flight has followed suit.
While football continues to display a rightful obsession with fighting racism, homophobia in the sport is rife.
The culture remains so toxic that if you support or play for Brighton, where there just happens to be a large gay community, you are subjected to vile homophobic abuse from rival fans, like at the London Stadium earlier this month.
We have openly gay sportspeople in women’s football, basketball, boxing, in England when Derby held Fulham to a draw in the Championship.
The former England skipper, who will be 35 in October, also made 120 appearances for his country and had a season in America with DC United.
He started his career with Everton aged just 16 and despite living life hard and swimming and both codes of rugby, but here we are in 2020 and football is still refusing to even come close.
What are governing bodies like the Football Association, Football League and Professional Footballers’ Association doing to change the culture that forces gay players to live a lie?
While commitments to equality and creating the right environment for players to feel comfortable are to be commended, they only go so far – and the subject remains as big a taboo today as it always has been.
It’s impossible not to confront the awkward possibility that clubs might well be discouraging players from coming out.
In his autobiography the late Brian Clough, Fashanu’s manager at Forest, struggled to accept who his £1m striker was. Would a manager today encourage one of his players to announce he was gay? Doubtful.
Worse still, would a gay player still be accepted by all of his team-mates? Even more doubtful.
Fashanu was a trailblazer, but not for the reason he – and those right minded people among us – had hoped he would have been.
His bravery back then made little or no difference to future generations.
Nothing whatsoever has changed and this might just remain the ugliest face of all of the so-called ‘beautiful game.’ fast at times, is now heading towards his 20th season as a professional footballer.
Rooney’s had injuries and a liking for the odd cigarette and cold beer – and it’s fair to say certain critics have written him off at times, insisting he would be washed up by the age of 30.
But he’s still going strong due to one thing he loves more than anything – the game itself. His enthusiasm and work ethic remain a shining example to youngsters coming through, because football is just like life in general, you get out of it what you put in.
The prospect of retiring will fill someone like Rooney with dread, but there’s no sign of him hanging up his boots yet.