Bravo for Casey Stoney, Arsenal player and England captain, for coming out as gay while still playing. Kind of highlights the problem that there's so many more top level male players, yet none of them feel able to.
There's a hell of a difference between men & women's football,saying that the girl has my total respect
Too much being made of it all I really don't care if a footballer or celebrity is gay or not, sometime soon a player will come out as gay and the media will have a big circus about it while the average fan just looks at the headlines and goes "meh! He'd better score this weekend the useless bastard. What's on tv."
First of all I'd like to say I'm always impressed when someone in the public eye 'outs' (hate that term! So pejorative sounding!) themselves. They're being very brave although they shouldn't have to be. The problem is society not themselves. Having said that, I think it may be fundamentally different between the men's and women's football. Football is often seen as super macho (not sure why it's not rugby, tbh!) and therefore, due to the stereotypes, male players are expected to be heterosexual and female players are expected to be homosexual. Casey said probably around 2-3 player per side were gay, the stereotype of women football player (and women rugby players) would suggest the opposite, i.e. 2-3 straight players per team. Also, and I'm just speculating here (as I've never been to a women's game), I'd expect fans attending women's games to be more family oriented and liberal (read intelligent!), like Rugby supporters. Therefore I'd expect them to have a smaller element of tribalism and hooliganism, and so they'd be more tolerant of such proclamations. I may be way off here and hope if someone has been to more womens' games, and know the culture better, they can set me straight (so to speak!). Finally, kudos to Casey, and hopefully she won't be subjected to too much bile by ignorant morons!
Unfortunately some of those average fans will suddenly remember the fact when the player in question is on the field playing against their team. There's probably around 2-3 gay players per team in the male game too. That's just law of averages ... 25ish player side, statistically probable for 2-3 to be gay. But yes, by virtue of women's football not exactly appealing to the lowest common denominator it's probably a lot safer for Stoney to come out than a male player. Hardly the same level of abuse and bigotry she's facing.
