The 21st century has seen football as a sport attempt to clean up its image, with anti-social behaviour and racism being stamped down upon by clubs, both on the pitch and in the stands. However, strangely, clubs do not seem as willing to support the Right Behind Gay Footballers campaign, which is indicated by the reluctance of many of the Premier League clubs to wear the rainbow laces that symbolise the campaign. Despite it being another form of discrimination, similar to racism, football seems unwilling to give it the same treatment. This post will examine the scale of the problem, before suggesting potential reasons behind the clubs' decisions not to don the striking rainbow laces for this week's fixtures.
Whilst racism often, and quite rightly, takes the headlines, with sagas like that of John Terry and Luis Suarez a couple of examples in recent years, homophobia often goes under the radar. Having attended many games over the years, I can recall several examples of homophobic abuse from the sidelines. Whilst there are perhaps not as many examples of on-field homophobic abuse, this does not mean there is not a issue within the game. Discrimination against gay sportsmen is not simply isolated to football, however. In almost every sport the statistics are striking. Despite an approximate of 10% of the population being gay, there are hardly any examples of gay sportsmen. Now, either this is an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances, or there is something that is forcing gay footballers to hide their sexuality. The perception of football dressing rooms and stadia as 'laddish enviroments' often means that those gay footballers believe that they will not be as readily accepted as they are in the rest of society, and this is unfortunate. I am certain that these worries are sometimes unnecessary, as many dressing rooms would be perfectly accepting of gay team mates. However, I am equally certain that there are dressing rooms that would not take as kindly to it, and would treat the player differently as a result. Also, players will suffer abuse for being different in any way, and being gay would immediately make the player a target for homophobic supporters. Neither of these scenarios are very pleasant, and many stories from ex-professionals have indicated how hard it is to be a gay man in sport.
Two examples spring instantly to mind. Ex-Welsh rugby union captain Gareth Thomas, who became the first openly gay rugby union player in 2009, has since explained the months and years of emotional turmoil at the thought of coming out to his fellow rugby players, and feared being abused by the crowd. This is actually a fantastic success story, as his fears were unfounded, his colleagues accepted him with open arms, and he has since gone on to become a gay icon for sportsmen worldwide. Others were not as fortunate. The first example of an openly gay British footballer ended in tragedy. Justin Fashanu, the ex-Norwich, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and West Ham United player was subjected to abuse, both inside and outside the dressing room. Eventually, after a brief career state-side, he was accused of sexual assault by a seventeen year old, a charge he always claimed was unfounded. Sadly, this led to his suicide in 1998. The fact that in 10 years the feeling has changed is positive, however the problem of homophobic abuse still remains, otherwise we would have expected to see many more players come out. In recent years, American football Robbie Rogers, who plied his trade at Leeds United, came out and immediately retired, citing his homosexuality as the reason behind his decision. This, coupled with the decision not to wear the rainbow laces, implies that there is still some work to do to kick homophobic abuse out of football.
So what is the 'Right Behind Gay Footballers' campaign? Gay rights group Stonewall, created in 1989 after the infamous Stonewall riots, launched the Right Behind campaign earlier this week. Designed to back gay players and unite against homophobia within sport, the British based group sent rainbow laces to each of the 92 Football League clubs this week, in the hope that they would wear them, symbolising football's unity against discrimination. After a successful Twitter campaign, which saw the hashtag #RBGF trending nationwide, it was expected that the majority of football clubs would support the motion. However, the campaign initially went down like a lead balloon within the clubs, with only Everton from England's top flight openly stating that they would wear them. Neither Norwich nor Aston Villa in Saturday's early fixture donned the laces, sending the initial message that football is not whole-heartedly behind the campaign.
But why could that be? As much as football detractors will be writing the sport off as discriminatory and homophobic, I refuse to accept that the vast majority of footballers, chairmen and fans are not wholly supportive of gay rights in everyday life, and therefore we would expect football to be no different. Perhaps it would be more worth looking at the campaign itself, and the way that it has conducted itself over the last week. Here we can see a good idea of why football clubs, and gay footballers in general, would be less willing to get involved. There have been many incidents of crass behaviour by those running the campaign, with many of the supportive slogans and adverts getting dangerously close to the knuckle. Even the title of the campaign, 'Right Behind Gay Footballers', is intended to be a play on an old homophobic joke. Whilst the intentions behind the campaign are undoubtedly good, much of the execution is not serious enough for the footballing world to consider it as a significant problem. To trivialise the problem means that the footballing world will fail to take the message of the campaign seriously. In fact, we could even say that it is counter-productive, as it actually reinforces the bigoted stereotypes that are consistently screamed at them from the terraces. From this perspective it is easy to see why many of those involved in the game would not want to be associated with such a poorly executed campaign.
This certainly goes some way to explaining the reluctance of many of the football clubs in wearing the rainbow laces associated with the RBGF campaign. However, my personal opinion remains that they should all still be wearing them. Yes, the campaign is flawed, but the message behind it remains the same: that there is no place in football for homophobic abuse or discrimination. The people designing the campaign and the advertisers have been extremely silly, but the motion is positive. There is no guarantee that this subject will come up again for a while, so even if it means supporting a flawed campaign, it is always good to indicate how united football is against a topic. I can, however, understand the reluctance of many gay footballers to want to wear something that appears to worsen the stereotypes that they have been verbally battered with for so many years.
No comments:
Post a Comment