“If you said you had somebody say they don’t believe somebody is gay at elite level, I’d love a conversation because I’d think they were insane. There are 100 per cent gay men in elite football in this country, without a shadow of a doubt. They just don’t feel comfortable yet to be themselves.”
That’s the view of Matt Morton, player-manager at Telford Town, in the ninth tier of English football, shared in an innovative, expansive new Channel 4 documentary Football’s Coming Out released on Tuesday on their YouTube channel.
I was fortunate enough to be shown an advanced screening and it’s well worth watching if you find it hard to fathom why there are still no openly gay professional footballers.
The documentary is held together by the thread of what the roadmap of a footballer coming out might look like, from telling a manager, the captain, team-mates, club staff, to the reaction from the media, on social media, from supporters inside stadiums, to how endorsements might be affected, negatively and positively.
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“Since Justin Fashanu came out 30 years ago, not a single men’s player has come out while still actively playing,” says Morton, one of the few active footballers in England to be openly gay.
That remains a huge blot on English football’s copybook, and a topic that has meandered through the public and media landscape since Justin Fashanu tragically took his own life.
There have been aggressive attempts to out players, an FA chairman saying he is ashamed gay players do not feel comfortable coming out then later describing it as a “life choice”.
But there have also been other debates and discussions, and perhaps the hard homophobic shell of football is slowly cracking. In 2017, Ryan Atkin became the first Football League referee to come out as gay. Last October, Australian Josh Cavallo became the first openly gay professional male footballer in the world.
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It’s shocking, disturbing and heartbreaking to hear Jon Smith, often referred to as the first super-agent who once had Diego Maradona and over 400 players on his books, say in the documentary that one of the reasons an elite player is yet to come out is that agents are likely to have advised them it could damage them financially. Equally, it’s promising that current figures operating in this sphere, including CAA Base agent Georgie Hodge and Adidas senior director Liz Callow, strongly dispute this.
Fingers are pointed at the dressing room: “a unique place”, Morton says, mixing personalities but always including Colonels and Generals. They’re the ones who keep the rest in line, set the tone for the group, call someone out if banter becomes bullying.
“When it comes to sexuality, they are the people who are going to make a massive difference in whether someone is going to feel accepted if they do reveal their sexuality,” Morton says.
As an idea of how that might look in the Premier League, Leeds United and England striker Patrick Bamford is the most high-profile current player interviewed. “I’d imagine if a player came out as gay, they’d probably go to the captain and confide in the captain,” he says. “And then the captain would bring the group together and you’d have a player-only meeting and everyone would be told the news.
“I know in our changing room I don’t think there would be much of a reaction, everyone would be like, OK it shouldn’t be that big a deal in this day and age.”
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Bamford theorises that if a team-mate came out and received homophobic abuse from fans during a game, players would “just show that you’re together. As with certain times when there’s been racism on the pitch and you’ve seen players come together and walk off the pitch, that shouldn’t change with anything. Whether they’re being racist or homophobic, show exactly the same support, come together as a team, stand together as a unit, and show you’ve got that player’s back.”
Several figures, including Brighton chief executive Paul Barber, former Everton and England defender Joleon Lescott and Bamford, believe change has accelerated in the past 10 years. “Growing up there were a lot more gay jokes and it was viewed in a more negative light,” Lescott says. “I think the perception of gay males has changed.”
It’s hard to see that’s changed enough. Although Morton is more optimistic.
“There’s a lot of negatives about social media,” he says, “but you can also spread positivity and acceptance. The acceptance has removed some of the fear and actually it’s flipped it on its head and the minority are the racists, are the homophobes, are the sexists. So they’re cowards — ultimately they are cowards. And now they’re massively outnumbered. So I think it’s the perfect time for somebody to embrace who they are and live the life they want to live.”
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