Dear all,

I am involved in some university research that is looking at sexuality in football and I would appreciate a few minutes of your time to share your thoughts on this subject. The survey is anonymous and can be found here:

https://doit.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form ... VLc7wZUS57

Thanks in advance for your time.

Done

Over to you Mutley

I've done but I have a bit more to say.

Firstly, I don't think we'll have an open footballer in the EFL by even 2030. As far as I recall the last openly homosexual player in the EFL was Robbie Rogers for Leeds, and even then he came out upon returning to the United States. Simply put I feel if a player was to come out today it'd be an unmitigated disaster.

The racism increase in the past few seasons has been sharp and apparent. Not just that, but the things chanted about in general. If a player was to come out as gay the crowd would torture him for the whole 90 minutes. Just look at David Cox in Scotland, and the reaction he gets is only because he openly discussed suicide attempts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... e-50694097

Next we have the media. The way the media, particularly the Sun vultures over players personal information and lifestyles is abhorrent. If a gay player was to come out the Sun would love spreading whatever dirt they could on them. Just look at the time the Sun said Ashley Cole was gay!

And when you factor in the final English known gay player in the EFL other than Thomas Hitzlsperger, Justin Fashanu took his life I genuinely wonder why people haven't figured out why players don't want to come out. It should also be noted a reason why more women footballers have came out is due to society usually wielding more relaxed attitudes to female homosexuals opposed to male homosexuals, particularly in the United States (who's women team has several lesbian players if I remember correctly).

I'd like to a see a gay player within the next 10 years, but I also dread just how dire life would get for them.

Celebrities always have the option of stopping being a celebrity if fame turns out not to be their cup of tea.
The gutter press, no matter how much people including myself despise them, will always be part of the deal.
That by the way has nothing to do specifically with sexuality or football.

Statistically there is likely to be a lot of gay footballers. And chances are the gutter press know who they are and what they've been up to with who.

But they choose not to out them, and I wonder why? It won't be because of a sense of decency, as the gutter press doesn't have any of that, so does anyone have any idea?

Because I reckon even for them in this day and age it would be a step too far. But then again The Sun have just done it to Phillip Schofield who was essentially blackmailed into it. But I suppose the fact that he was married to a women for so long adds a slightly different aspect. Even then most people’s reaction was ‘meh’ why should I be bothered about that. I think it’s time these ‘gossip’ arseholes like Dan Wooton we’re got rid of. It doesn’t really fit in with all that ‘be kind’ stuff does it?

I think just about every footballer playing now is from a generation that wouldn’t be bothered about a team mate coming out and wouldn’t treat them any differently. Fans the same.

its hard to see the same happening even in local sunday league football. does it really matter though as i,m sure some think that being gay was only invented a few years ago whereas its been around since humans began on the earth. what a player does outside the game has no interest to me as long as its legal. when fans come out first then players may follow but do not hold your breath on both scores.

The bigger clubs have a reciprocal relationship with the press. They feed the sports pages stories, interviews and exclusives. In exchange they expect, and get, barely any scrutiny of the business side of things or the private conduct of key personnel at the club. A good example is the son of a club owner who was also an executive and regularly invited journalists to dinner at his house. Dinner involved cocaine and strippers, some journalists filled their boots, others left, nobody reported on it. If they'd tried their editors would have just spiked the story rather than sacrifice the flow of approved stories.

Schofield was forced into it because he was shagging a teenager. There was then a bug campaign saying how ‘heroic’ he had been. Oh do so fuck right off.

And not one word about his poor wife.

Surely it was all about saving his career...?

Drove into where the old club shop was around the back at Pools. I’ve been unavailable for several months and didn’t know it had moved and was now ‘We buy any car.com’ based there. Unaware, I walked boldly in through the door to a rather stark office with a desk, a bloke asked if he could help me accompanied by a giant photo figure of a grinning Philip Schofield. I left. It was surreal.

On the subject of ‘gay’ players, does anyone really care anymore?
Most people just accept it now and eventually gay people will just merge into the mainstream and sexuality will be irrelevant.