NFL Draftee may be first (openly?) Gay NFL Athlete

Lou.m wrote: »

OK well gay pride is always lovely. Erm what is the NFL??? NHL ?

Well it's American Football stuff I guess.


I wonder what would happen if more football players here were open.

NFL = National Football League; the professional American football league that constitutes one of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. It is composed of 32 teams divided equally between the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC). The highest professional level of American Football in the world.

NHL = National Hockey League; an "unincorporated not-for-profit association" which operates a major professional ice hockey league. Currently there are 30 franchised member clubs, 23 located in the United States and 7 in Canada. Headquartered in New York City, the NHL is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world.


Slowly but surely, more and more players in all sports are coming out. Being the first player to come out, doesn't mean you'll be the first gay player in the sport. Robbie Rogers, Thomas Hitzlsperger and John Fashanu are players who played in English football, but both only came out after they left the game. And you can probably guess why.

It is surely a fact, that somewhere across Europe's top football leagues, there is at least one gay footballer. But you have to understand that football stadiums are still pure hotbeds of intolerance, discrimination and so on. Racism is only finally being gotten rid of. 14 years into the 21st century, and racism is still a huge problem in football. Imagine what would happen to the first brave soul who decided to come out.

I always use this example to illustrate a point:

If you think of the top few leagues in Europe (English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Dutch; 7 for this example). In the English, Spanish, Italian and French leagues, there are 20 teams. In the German and Dutch leagues, there are 18 teams. In the Portuguese league, there are 16 teams. On average, there will be between 20 and 30 players in a team's squad. For this example, I'll use 23 players (as its the number of players that usually go in an International squad for a tournament).

So, assuming each team has a minimum of 23 players, that gives us a rough total of at least 3,036 players across the seven leagues. According to statistics, that 1 in 12 or so of men are gay, or 8.33%, gives us an approximate that there are (give or take) 250 gay footballers currently plying their trade across the top 7 professional football leagues in Europe. Start adding in other leagues, lower-tier leagues and you know where this is going.

Maybe my figures are flawed (the percentage of people that are gay is one that is very, very hard to get correct; I just used the one I'd heard most), but the fact is that there are undoubtedly dozens of footballers that are gay. But due to political pressures, fear of discrimination, fear for their professional lives and maybe even fear for their lives in general, they remain in the closet.

Of course, the opposite has happened; a perfectly straight footballer was for a long time rumoured to be gay and his life was almost ruined by endless taunting and discrimination, even though he was not gay and had a wife and children. That man did not play football in some obscure league in Eastern Europe. That man was Graeme Le Saux, who played top level football with clubs such as Blackburn and Chelsea in the mid-1990's. He endured endless abuse from players, including such lauded figures as Robbie Fowler, Paul Ince and Robbie Savage. This is his story, and it's quite a jarring read and quite sad.

http://reflectionsasia.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/graeme-le-saux-how-gay-slurs-almost-wrecked-my-career/

Le Saux was a gentleman who had a touch of class about him. This is why he was singled out.

Lyaiera wrote: »

That video is really encouraging but I took a step back when he was saying, "I don't understand it either!" about someone being gay. What's to understand? Is he talking about sex? Explain sex in a normal world and you'll have eyebrows raising everywhere. Who does what to the where now? Is it about holding hands? WHY THE **** WOULD YOU CLUTCH ONTO SOMEONE AND UPSET THEIR BALANCE?

What's to understand? Person A likes Person B and People AB do things that's none of the ****ing business of Telepresenter C.

Is it that a man can love another man? "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE LIKING EACH OTHER!?!"

Jesus Christ I despair.

Yeah but someone saying that they don't always feel comfortable with gay people but then saying basically they deserve equality is a big step forward.

He is saying I don't get homosexuals but I get that they should be treated equally with love and respect. It's a step.

I get your frustration though.

It is discouraging to see that gay people are so far form their worldview.