The Beautiful Game

By Euclides Montes (@gatulino)

I found myself in a peculiar position recently. As you might already be aware, there is some sort of football competition going on at the moment and being one of the many loony football fans around the world, I could barely contain my excitement. Having been born in a country whose World Cup experience is painfully risible, my allegiance has squarely been with the English team for the last decade or so, yet I found myself defending my position as an England supporter recently in conversation amongst a group of British-born fans. Peculiar indeed, in my opinion.

Of course there are the obvious – and to an extent reasonable - arguments of ‘why bother?’. With the English team it’s usually a matter of ‘we came, we saw, we stuttered, we went home with our tail between our legs’. The echoes of ’66 still ringing as loud and heavy as the vuvuzuelas in South Africa. We all know that we’re probably going to face Portugal or Germany at some point, and that Lampard will take that pivotal penalty kick and … well, I can even see The Sun headline already ‘HE BENT IT LIKE BECKHAM’. But surely that’s no reason to stop supporting our team. After all, being a glutton for pain and disappointment is an essential requirement for football fans everywhere, especially if you are an [insert your own team here] supporter. And besides, this could be our year after all!

Add to that the fact that some of our players will never make it into any of our Christmas card list and that the modern state of the sport mean that some of those disliked players still command ridiculous sums week in, week out and you can understand why some people have chosen to forsake the national team and support teams from other countries. As I said above, understandable.

However, one criticism I have seen gathering pace recently is that of football – and the World Cup at that – being a prejudiced enterprise in almost every sense and just by supporting it I should almost feel ashamed of myself. I am a very woolly liberal, I’ll be the first to admit but this argument really grates. I know that the sport is not perfect in any shape or form. Corruption, overpaid stars, a tacit allowance of homophobia, racism and sexism, Sepp Blatter. These are evils that continue to plague football to this day. However, the advances the sport has made to clean itself from these problems have been vast and commendable and to dismiss offhand the pinnacle of what is possibly the most universal sport of the 21st century through a very loaded and hackneyed viewpoint is surely not helpful and even prejudiced in itself.

I understand many people’s discomfort to cheer for England. Some of our symbols have been appropriated by racists and extremists and I have no doubt groups like the EDL are having their birthday and Christmas all come at once - especially with so many lies spreading like wildfire. But surely to shy away from reclaiming our team, our symbols, our right to feel proud of our nation without the tinge of jingoism, in short to cower away is not be helpful. It would instead give those who hold these extremist views an open field to claim ‘supporting the English team’ as well and that surely is a worse state of affairs? Unquestionably everyone can see that supporting doesn’t equate thuggery in any sense?

Besides, beyond all those arguments, football will always be in its most basic form a beautiful spectacle but it is a spectacle that can bring people together and it always has done so successfully. It is flawed and it has issues that need resolving but surely to dismiss it offhand is not beneficial in any way whatsoever? Hmm…

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Why Are There No Gay Footballers?

by Joshua Surtees

My ex-girlfriend physically despises professional organised sports. Apart from figure skating. But then, she is Canadian. And Canadians notoriously have difficulty understanding any sport that doesn’t involve ice. Or snow. Or both.

 
Above all sports, however, she had a particular dislike for football (or “sah-kerr” to use her North American terminology). The instant football came on the TV she would magically produce a book or magazine and start reading, steadfastly refusing to glance at the screen even for a millisecond. Unless of course Cristiano Ronaldo was playing. She liked CR9. Although I’m pretty sure it wasn’t his sporting prowess she was admiring.

Other than Ronaldo, the only other aspect of association football that fascinated my ex was the inherent homoeroticism of the game. She would point out homoerotic aspects which many ‘sah-kerr’ fans choose to ignore but, when examined, are clearly present. E.g. that 60,000 men (and football crowds still are 90% male) crammed into a stadium very close to each other watching 22 men run around in tight shorts, mimicking the players’ kisses, cuddles and embraces that follow each goal, is quite a ‘gay’ thing to do. Bear in mind she is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has more gay friends than any other straight person I know. Her point was that the majority of the men doing these ‘gay’ things at football matches are, generally, rather homophobic. The beautiful irony she saw in fat, unfashionable, largely illiterate, straight men getting “all homosexual” with each other was hilarious to her. “Are you off to the game now to be gay with your friends and all the other guys?” she would goad. “It’s not gay,” I would respond, “it’s what’s known as male bonding. It’s about as non-gay an activity as you can get”. But I was only fooling myself. It is gay. It’s very, very gay.

The question she would ask me about football, above all others, was: why are there no gay footballers? This ponder is dedicated to her musing…

So, why are there no gay footballers? And I do literally mean none. The only footballer in the entire history of the world game to come out publicly was Justin Fashanu in 1990. Upon coming out he was instantly mocked and reviled by supporters, even disowned by his own brother, the cretinous John Fashanu. Sadly, Justin Fashanu, a talented footballer in his mid-80’s prime, took his own life in 1998. As a black man, having put up with years of racism within the game, he became unable to deal with the homophobia, the general turbulence of his life, the taunts of managers, fans and players and an unfounded sexual assault claim filed against him by a teenaged boy he coached in the US.

Other than Fashanu, no footballer has ever admitted being gay. Marcello Lippi last year claimed there are no gay players in the game. Now, in a sport played by 250,000 people world wide, around a quarter of whom are professionals, it’s simply not possible for them all to be straight. That’s just a question of simple logic. Some, perhaps as many as 10%, must be gay. If they are, then it’s very sad they have to live in the closet through fear of what might happen if they were public about it. Sadly, such fears are well founded. Football in many ways is still truly a philistine sport.

To put homophobia in football in context; within very recent memory in the UK, loud open, vitriolic racism was heard at nearly any game you went to. In some places it still exists: Millwall, Oldham, Stoke, Burnley, Leeds or Cardiff to name a few. You will still hear racist abuse at all of these places. In Italy and Spain racism is commonplace and barely questioned, even by the authorities. Given this fact, you are probably able to imagine what attitudes to gay people are like. Homophobic abuse is already directed at players who are not openly gay but simply suspected of being so. Or even just because they read books! Graeme Le Saux, an intelligent former player and league title winner, was one such player subjected to taunts. Sol Campbell is another. “Have you ever seen Campbell with a bird? Have you fuck.” they sing at him. And far far worse things I’d rather not repeat here.

While anti-racist policies such as the FA’s Kick It Out have been in place for a while, the intolerance of homosexuality in football circles is only just beginning to be challenged at an official level. The FA has a Homophobia In Football working group. Shamefully, professional clubs are neglecting to support its aims.

Other sports have featured openly gay players. Rugby, with the recent example of Gareth Thomas, basketball player John Amaechi in the US, even the ultra-macho, Irish sport of Hurling recently had a gay revelation in the form of star player Dónal Óg Cusack.

So, what is football’s problem? Clearly one can accept the culture of football is decisively masculine, aggressive and centred around male posturing. But I don’t see that this stops a player from coming out. Gay men can be just as masculine, aggressive and posturing as straight ones. The question is: why would they choose to expose themselves to the hatred by disclosing their orientation? The hatred would not necessarily come from fellow players. David James, Portsmouth and England goalkeeper, demonstrates this, writing rather eloquently here about his hope for a gay player to come out.

And yet, to come out in the Premiership in England would take a huge amount of bravery. PR guru Max Clifford believes there are gay footballers out there who are too scared to come forward. But somebody will have to take the first step. While initial reactions may be harsh, I feel that if a strong role model gay figure was to emerge, somebody with the equivalent status to a David Beckham or Wayne Rooney, the bully boys and homophobes in the crowd could be silenced. All human rights campaigns require trailblazers, groundbreakers and martyrs. Gay football already has its martyr, Justin Fashanu. Let us hope there will be no more martyrdom but at the same time let us hope that one day somebody will emerge with the courage and conviction to cope with the stress and to change footballing attitudes, just as Clyde Best, Brendan Batson, Cyril Regis, Viv Anderson and Laurie Cunningham did for black players and fans in the 70s.

There are gay men involved in some ways with football. Elton John owned Watford FC in the 1980s. Matt Lucas is an Arsenal season ticket holder regularly seen at games. It would, however, be a giant step forward into the 21st century, if an actual player or indeed manager, intimately connected to the sport came out. One day it will happen. Maybe not necessarily in the UK. Maybe in Holland, Germany, Sweden; places with more forward-thinking, European attitudes. Not that homophobia in the UK is generally a huge problem. Historically we are one of the most tolerant and supportive countries when it comes to gay rights. It’s just such a shame our tolerance and support does not extend to our national sport.

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