Last year Allsorts Young Volunteer and soon to be Assistant Youth Support Worker, Ryan Finn, created a video blog on his experiences as a trans man. Here he speaks about many subjects such as family, surgery and sexual orientation…
Just over a week ago Arsenal, along with the other 19 Premier League clubs, signed the Government charter against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in football, and unveiled its “Football For Everyone” initiative. The clubs pledged their commitment to tackling abuse of LGBT people both on and off the pitch. The four-point government backed charter aims to stamp out discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in all sports and make sport a more welcoming environment for gay, bisexual and transgender people.
At their first home game of LGBT History month (against Blackburn Rovers) on Tuesday, Arsenal showed their commitment to this by displaying their “Arsenal For Everyone” banner before kick off.
Robin Van Persie’s statement in the match day programme also highlights the clubs commitment: “As captain of the club I’m fully supportive- we all have the same right’s and football is for everyone, no matter who you are. Private and personal matters should not come into it, and I don’t see why anyone should discriminate against another because of their beliefs, sexuality of anything else.” The publication also let fans know about the Justin Campaign’s forthcoming Football Vs Homophobia initiative.
The initiative and charter, come just days after the BBC3 documentary Britain’s Gay Footballers was aired. The programme highlighted the fact that there have been no openly gay professional footballers since Justin Fashanu, who came out in 1990 and was alienated by his family, had an unfounded allegation of sexual assault against him and later committed suicide. The programme was created by Amal Fashanu, Justin’s niece, who raised discussions about homophobic chants and investigated how homosexuality is perceived in other sports. Most notably, she spoke to her father, John Fashanu who had previously been unsupportive and made derogatory comments about Justin when he came out over 25 years ago.
She interviewed many different sources about homophobia in football such as Matt Lucas, gay TV personality and avid Arsenal supporter and Max Clifford, the celebrity PR guru. In addition, she interviewed Joey Barton, captain of Queens Park Rangers who stated: “Certain managers….certain individuals within the game will discriminate against people. These archaic figures think if they had a gay footballer that there would be all kinds of shenanigans going on in the dressing room.” However, he went on to comment he believes that within the next 10 years there will be an openly gay professional footballer.
The programme was received with mixed reviews, however, whether you liked the programme or not, it would be difficult to argue against it’s merit in helping to highlight the level of homophobia in football. The programme, along with Arsenal’s ‘Football For Everyone” initiative show that a change in attitudes to gay footballers is well overdue and that changes are being made to stop homophobia slowly but surely.
You can watch Britain’s Gay Footballers on iplayer here. Catch it quick before it disappears in three days!
Click here for Football Vs Homophobia’s Facebook page
