Tag: football

He’s coming out, and he wants the world to know. An anonymous Twitter user claiming to be a gay English Football League player says he’s getting ready to publicly come out and has been cluing in his loved ones in the meantime. “I’m a professional footballer, playing for a club in the . I will be revealing my identity soon, but I am a proud gay man, hoping to break the mould,” the user wrote on July 5. “I am...

Photo by Tevarak Phanduang on Unsplash A championship footballer is “to come out as gay in the near future.” With two LGBTQ-friendly football/soccer teams making it to the finals at the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the US team with out player Megan Rapinoe ultimately winning, there’s a lot of attention on LGBTQ players in the sport. And perhaps because of that, one other player may be gearing up to come out. A Twitter account under the name of “The Gay Footballer”...

In April of 2017, former NFL player Aaron Hernandez committed suicide while incarcerated at Souza Baranowski Correctional Center in Massachusetts. The 27-year-old was serving time after having been found guilty of the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013. In the aftermath of his death, scores of news stories explored possible reasons why the former New England Patriots player would take his own life. In march of this year, a documentary titled Aaron Hernandez Uncovered on Oxygen featured his former lawyer saying, “This...

A gay football fan has been left with serious brain injuries after being viciously attacked in Russia. O. Davrius and his partner had travelled to Russia from France to cheer on their home country, but were beaten in St Petersburg after catching a taxi. Their phones and wallets were stolen in the horrendous attack. Davrius was left with more severe injuries than his partner, suffering with a fractured jaw, brain contusion and an open craniocerebral injury. Two men have been arrested in...

Footballing superstar Mohamed Salah has received a backlash after agreeing to meet the leader responsible for Chechnya’s ‘gay purge.’ The Egypt and Liverpool forward, one of the most famous faces in football, was visited at his hotel by Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov, whose regime has reportedly engaged in a deadly campaign against gay and bisexual men. Salah agreed to accompany Kadyrov to Egypt’s training base in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital city, before posing and smiling with the leader in front of the...

"It is nice to be able to go to prom with whoever you want and not have to worry about what other people might think,” says Missouri senior Jake Bain. Prom is often the culmination of a great high school experience. But as the only openly gay students at John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri, it was more than that for seniors—and boyfriends—Jake Bain and Hunter Sigmund. https://instagram.com/p/Bhm63-KHuTl/?utm_source=ig_embed “Prom this year was amazing,” Sigmund shared with Outsports. It was my fourth school...

This December we covered the inspiring story of gay high school football team captain Jake Blain's upcoming tenure at Indiana State University. Now things have gone from inspiring to awwwz-inducing as pics of Blain and his swim team boyfriend Hunter Sigmund attending prom together have hit the web! At only nineteen-years-old, Blain has already made headlines for not only his sports career, but also for the discrimination he faced from Westboro Baptist Church after announcing his four years at Indiana...

Security seemed to be MIA during a football match between Portugal and Netherlands earlier today as a gaggle of overzealous fans stormed the field and showered Cristiano Ronaldo in kisses. One man managed to give Ronaldo a big old smooch right on the face. Another pranced out on to the pitch to give the footballer a quick peck on the chest. And that’s when security got involved. Ronaldo didn’t seem exactly thrilled by the affection but he was ultimately a pretty...

'If a single footballer or referee is helped and encouraged by me coming out, my coming out has paid off.' Pascal Erlachner has come out as gay. He is believed to be the first man in Swiss professional football to come out. The referee hopes that his coming out will start public discussion around the taboo of being gay in football. Erlachner came out in an interview with Swiss newspaper Blick. He explained he feels he can come out now as he is comfortable...

"We know from the amount of professionals that there has to be players who are gay, but feel they don't want to come out." The world of professional soccer is currently suffering from a lack of LGBT representation, with zero openly gay players on any major team in the UK. But the new edition of the popular computer game Football Manager is shaking things up by allowing players to come out of the closet for the first time. The spreadsheet game...

One even brought his boyfriend to training. A former Premier League footballer has revealed he’s played alongside several openly gay teammates. Carl Hoefkens, a former Belgium international who played for Stoke and West Brom from 2005-2009, told Belgian news outlet De Zondag that while the players weren’t out in public, they were open about their sexuality in the locker room. Hoefkens stated that two of his former teammates in England were gay, and that he aso played alongside gay teammate after returning...

The Danish Football Association is working with the Players Association, Amnesty International Denmark, LGBT Denmark, and Danish Football Fan Clubs for an anti-homophobic campaign. The goal is to fight homophobia in sports across the country. The campaign includes players wearing rainbow armbands and shoe laces, and appearing in rainbow face paint on bus posters. Members of pro teams also marched in Copenhagen Pride in August, with the hashtag #FootballForAll being a rallying cry. Mathias “Zanka” Jørgensen, FC Copenhagen captain, said, “Homophobia is...

An openly gay referee has officiated a professional football match for the first time in England. Last night, Ryan Atkin, who came out earlier this month , was the fourth referee for a game in the Checkatrade Trophy. And the match’s excitement level matched its historic nature, as Stevenage Borough was thrashed 6-2 by Oxford United in the cup game. The referee, who attended Cornwall Pride over the weekend, wrote after the match that it “was an absolute pleasure. ?” Since coming out,...

'Being gay doesn’t matter in the context of refereeing a football match' Ryan Atkin has come out as the first openly gay professional football referee in the UK. The 32-year-old has made the move to take on homophobia in the sport. The match official will be undertaking fourth official duties in the EFL and National Leagues in 2017 – 18. ‘Being gay doesn’t matter in the context of refereeing a football match,’ Atkin told Sky Sports. ‘But if I’m speaking about equality and diversity,...