Homophobia in Football
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Unfortunately there seems to be a distinct lack of out gay footballers! This seems odd in this day and age as more and more people are, thankfully, coming out from all walks of life. For some reason, however, this does not seem to be as true in sport and extremely rare in football. The only player to come out, that I’ve ever heard of, was Justin Fashanu, who sadly committed suicide.
So why is this the case? Is the Football Association very backward, is football culture behind the times? In my opinion at least part of the problem has to be due to the ignorance of some fans. Anyone who has ever been to a match in a stadium, whether it’s GAA in Croke Park, Soccer in any stadium or whatever, wherever, the fans always sing and jeer the opposing players, especially the good ones. In the vast majority of cases this is just fun banter and it ads to the atmosphere in the stadium. However, on those rare occasions when it gets personal you can’t help but feel for the player or manager who has to listen to it.
I remember watching Arsenal play an away game a few years back, it was in the League Cup and the fans were slagging each other off in a big way. However, every time Arsene Wenger stood up from his seat the home fans started to sing “Sit down you paedophile”, it can’t be easy hearing tens of thousands of people singing that at you but he had to take it. The line can be crossed, and is.
Last weekend Portsmouth paid a visit to White Hart Lane to play Spurs. Their captain, Sol Campbell, is an ex spurs hero. He played for them from the time he was a kid until controversially leaving them for close rivals Arsenal around 10 years later in 2001.. He graced our team until 2006 and was part of the “invincibles“, he was also voted 15th in our “Gunners’ Greatest 50 Players” poll. When he left there were questions asked as to why! He seemed to have some personal issues. During one match, I think it was against West Ham, he was subsituted at half time after a poor performance, and we were told by the commentators that he had left the ground. That was very odd, players usually stay to cheer on the team. Then he seemed to be out of the team for long periods and newspapers were reporting he had some personal problems. Some reports seemed to suggest that he was gay and was having some issues in his life around that. So when he left for Portsmouth, a team less in the news, all of the Arsenal fans cheered him and wished him the very best. He is now captain of Portsmouth and doing well. It seems, at least, that he is dealing with his personal demons well and I’m delighted to hear it.
As a result of this, all real football fans were horrified to hear that while playing a game against Spurs at the weekend he is reported as having suffered both racist and homobhobic abuse. Both the FA and the police are looking into this allegation and taking it very seriously. I know Spurs fans still hold a grudge against him for leaving them for Arsenal but this is totally unacceptable.
Something has to be done, it’s as simple as that. I know if you do something like that at Arsenal you are thrown out and I assume it’s like that around the county but if Spurs are found guilty a fine is not enough, the FA need to stand up and put their money where their mouth is!!! Sol does seem to have the backing of his manager who is quoted as saying
“This kind of thing has no place in football, no place in life. Someone has got to do something about it, somebody has got to make a stand and if Sol wants to do that we are right behind him”
Supporters organisations have to be involved too at every level. Any kind of abuse, be it anti-semetic, homobhobic, racist or whatever, needs to be stamped out of the game from the grass routes up and we all have to take responsibility for it.
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lol@how this is turning...
Interesting. Sport does seem to be one of the last bastions of the closet alright. As a rugby fan, I remember when one of our Refs came out before the World Cup. The ‘hands off’ comments still go around the ground when he refs a game. (In rugby you’re not allowed have your hands in the ruck, so refs shout ‘hands off it’s a ruck’ to players in warning).
It rankles with me though, that Campbell’s manager said “if Sol wants to do that we are right behind him”. I think the manager should make a stand on the issue whether or not it has to be specific to Campbell.
Everyone seems to be waiting for someone to do something, rather than do it themselves.
Thanks for the comment HAL. I know what you mean, someone has to stand up to it but that should really be FIFI, the world body, or at least the English FA.
Solo sports like tennis and golf seem to have people coming out rather than team sports – or is it the fact that in those sports there’s an eticate for the crowd to follow, not present in sports like football or rugby?
Wenger’s reaction here..
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/campbell-story
[...] And when the notion of ‘gay’ and ‘soccer’ do coincide, they connote the tragic story of Justin Fashanu. On Sunday, this issue came to the fore once more when former Spurs captain, Sol Campbell, was [...]
Actually now that you mention it, that’s right, it’s hardly ever in team sports that people come out. Could it really be down to dressing room taunts? Surely we’ve moved on from that…
I doubt it’s dressing room taunts, I think it’s more from the crowd. Team sports don’t have the same edicate from the crowd as sports like tennis and golf which need the crowd to be silent
I just filled in the Premier League’s Survey and one of the questions was
Have you ever heard or see the following…
Abuse about sexuality (‘gay’ abuse)
Fighting
Missile throwing
Moderate swearing
Extreme swearing
Sexist comments
Racist comments
Looks like we’re top of the list
Here’s an update….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7774114.stm
That’s very good, in particular the police involvement. Seems that 12(?) have been arrested out of the 16:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7777021.stm (2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7778417.stm (7)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/7780557.stm (3)
It’s just a shame that it doesn’t get any more coverage on the BBC than it’s regional news (Hampshire). It’s not even on the BBC’s Sport website.
Very true
I’m not a fan of Sky but in fairness to them it’s getting a great deal of coverage on Sky Sports News, I watch it most days and it has been shown over and over. The presentation is very good too, no jokes, they’re asking people to come forward
One thing I would like to say is that it seems to be football supporters who are giving the police the info, it’s great to see them coming forward and shows that they won’t allow a loud minority to ruin it for everyone so well done to those who have made statements.
11 fans have been charged
http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-englandchanting&prov=reuters&type=lgns
Four fans have been banned from football matches for three years. Hopefully more to follow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2009/jan/20/sol-campbell-abusive-chanting
[...] football grounds is a real problem and it must be stamped out. It’s not that long ago since arrests were made when Spurs played Portsmouth. The FA have planned this video for two years and now [...]
[...] Via mamanpoulet.com, we learned of Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) enforcing Mary Coughlan’s anti-gay laws. Perhaps it comes from the school of thought that thinks Katy Perry will burn in hell for all eternity. The death took place of Eileen Flynn, a teacher who was fired in the mid-1980s because of matters in her private life – a law which still stands today. News from bizzarre-o world told us that Maya Angelou was teaming up with Red Hurley (ya wha?!). A preview of the Dublin Theatre Festival brought us lesbonic highlights, plus the stage version of Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking”. There was also the top five hilarious targets of the religious right. Plus the first of many posts on the relationship between Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. For some reason, too, the Irish government saw fit to put a religious fundie on the parliamentary committee charged with looking at the issues around the Lisbon Treaty. I wonder why that could possibly be? The month was rounded off with a review of ex-Dresden Dolls lady, Amanda Palmer, live at the Academy in Dublin; plus a look at homophobia in football. [...]