Time for Change – Why football needs a Gay player and why it isn’t happening anytime soon.

Anton Hysen, not a name that will be familiar to most people.  And yet he holds the distinction of being the rarest of rare species.  He is the only openly gay professional footballer.   He is the son of former Liverpool defender Glenn Hysen, who in 2007, was the surprising choice to make the opening speech at the gay pride festival in Stockholm.  And this was when Anton had not yet come out in public and only to family and friends. 

Anton has fully accepted that his coming out has probably affected how far in the game he can go in its’ current state.  But he has also said that if fans abused him, it would just motivate him more to show what he can do to silence them.

Anton Hysen in action 

We now look at the sad case of Robbie Rogers, a former Leeds United player and USA international.  On 16th February 2013 he announced on his blog that he was gay and then simultaneously announced he was retiring from football.  His decision to retire was based on the perceived abuse he would receive if he carried on playing.

It is this perceived abuse that seems to be the root cause of there not being an openly gay footballer in the top English leagues.   I conducted a survey through multiple social media avenues to gauge the feeling of fans, if their teams’ star player came out as gay.  

I asked three questions which related to their own feeling, what they thought fellow fans of the same team would feel, and how other teams’ fans may feel.

When it came to the personal feelings, everyone I asked felt that they would give full support to the player regardless of sexuality.  A couple made points that as long as the player performs on the pitch what does it matter.

And that point strings nicely onto what they felt other fans of the same team may feel.  There was a strong belief that the vast majority of fans would also support the player.  However, they did feel that there would be a minority that would be of an ‘old school’ mind-set and throw abuse regardless.  Some also felt that if the performance level of the player was poor, it could get some fans to throw homophobic abuse.

With regards to the other teams’ fans, most felt that there would be an element of support, but they also felt that opposition fans could end up trying to destabilise the player with abuse.  It is this abuse that most likely made Robbie Rogers to make his choice of retirement.  But, there is another element that needs to be focused on that would not have helped. 

The powers that be in the F.A have been having a torrid time recently trying to deal with issues of racism directed against some of the top stars of the Premier League, and there is a belief that they are not doing enough to combat this.   If a player who is gay is looking at that situation, they will more likely feel that if they received abuse from fans or other players, there would not be a sufficient punishment handed out.   And that would stop them feeling they could be open about their sexuality.

In my opinion, what is needed is a strong stance taken by the F.A, stating that they will harshly punish any player, manager or team (on behalf of fans), for any –ism abuse.  And these punishments need to be severe enough to act as a sufficient deterrent.  There also needs to be a very high profile player or set of players that take a stand and come out as this may encourage players lower down the leagues to follow suit.

But until the F.A gets its’ house in order, I foresee the closet door remaining shut tight.