Football ( soccer) player comes out

[Agaith]

After reading Graeme's topic on the England cricketer Steven Davies coming out I stumbled across an article on a football (soccer) player that has recently come out.

Although not as high profile (being in a lower league in Sweden) it still shows progress

 

The comments from members of the public though...made my blood boil.

 

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/09032011/58/world-football-football-first-openly-gay-player.html

[Bleu]

The comments go from stupid to downright scary ("Line the gays up and shoot them in the head").

 

A French football player from a minor league, Yoann Lemaire, came out last year after being expelled from his team because of his sexual preferences. He got some support from the LGBT community, of course, and even the Sports Secretary sided with him.

 

Otherwise, there have been some cases of homophobic comments and signs during football matches, but the sanction decided by the Football League was a ridiculously small fine.

 

Still a long way to go.

[Graeme]

A long way to go, but it's progress Thanks, Agaith for the link and heads up!

 

In Australia, Ian Roberts (rugby) was forced out of the closet by rumours, according to his autobiography. Daniel Kowalski (swimmer) waited until he had retired. Matt Mitcham (diver) went to the Olympic Games as an openly gay athlete and won a gold medal Otherwise, I'm struggling to think of any gay athletes who are close to being household names here. I'm leaving Ian Thorpe off the list - despite constant rumours, he has denied being gay and I'll take him at his word unless someone can show me evidence otherwise.

 

There are a significant number of gay 'celebrities' outside of sports here in Australia (Bob Brown, Leader of the Federal Greens; Penny Wong, Minister for something or other; Michael Kirby, now retired High Court Judge; Kerryn Phelps, former Australian Medical Association president; plus numerous people in the entertainment industry), but not many sportsmen or sportswomen.

[Frostina]

The comments were just plain infuriating! like Stu said, it did make the blood boil!

 

I mean how do people make comments like that in this day and age???

 

Anywhoo... its a tiny step, yes.. but its a step nonetheless...

so.. All the Best to him.. we KNOW he's gonna need it

 

Thanks for putting the story up Stu! :)