Robbie Rogers

So in the past few years we have seen football progress from one player who is "out" in Anton Hysen (who hasn't come out at the end of his career and it also helps that he is very handsome), to the PFA acknowledging there are numerous gay players (who knows there could be one playing for Hull) to a established PL star posing in a established and well read gay magazine.

I honestly don't think there is as high a percentage of gay men in football as in England as a whole (10% is meant to be the figure in the general populous), due to various factors

 

Why would the percentage be lower than the percentage in the general populace? That's the whole point of saying it's average.

If you look at the numbers - it's very hard to get a low number.

Looking at the 25-man squads. There are 20 of those in the PL. So that's 500 people. If the 10% figure is right, then you've got 50 who are likely to be playing regularly in the PL. You've got to cut it down to 2% to say there are less than 10 people in regular PL squads. I've not heard a single statistic that says that there are less than 2% of people who are gay, and so if we're not saying that, then why would so many naturally gifted people just walk away?


There are 2760 people playing professional football in the English Leagues, if you assume an average squad size of 30 people, over the 92 teams. It is going to be going pretty heavily against established statistics if there are not at least 100 gay footballers in the English Leagues.

 

Half of them will be women too.

 

What do you mean? 10% is 10%

 

I mean that it's very unlikely that the percentage of gay people in football is the same as the percentage of gay people in society.

I know it's far from all gay people, but how many of them are very camp and girly? There will be a large proportion of them who aren't interested in sport. Larger than the average population. Football as a profession will attract certain demographics of people more than others just like most jobs will.

No doubt there are some gay athletes, but I'd be willing to bet there are far more gay people in creative industries like photography and stuff than there are in sport. I know these stereotypes get exaggerated, but they aren't completely wrong.

 

Just in the closet like all them tory MPs

 

I could disagree with you on so many levels in that post, but you said that half of them would be women, that is irrelevant when you're talking about percentages.

My previous point was even if there are fewer than the average percentage, if we cut it down to as little as 1%, that's still 27 footballers. I don't believe that is the case though, and there's no evidence that other areas/professions have below average gay populations.

If you believe that the gays are more likely to be doing their nails than playing football, I believe organizations such as the gay football supporters network would disagree.

 

I can see where they are coming from... 10% of society are gay, half of them women, so that means that 5% are males................. they were talking about revising your figures thats all.

 

The figures don't need revising. 10% is 10%.

5% of society are gay males admittedly, but only 50% of society is male! That still makes 10% of male society gay. And since we're talking about a professional male football league, the 10% stands. We can include lesbians in the figures, but to do that we need to increase the pool by adding female footballers to the total.

 

Seriously? These supposed stereotypes are still believed to be true? Here was me thinking we lived in 2013 now not 1953!!

 

i think its a shame he feels the need to retire after coming out .
In general i dont think the vast majority of people from the educated world (places he was playing) have a problem at all with homosexuality .
I couldnt care less and someones sexuality either , its just not an issue to me .

Now im sure he would get grief from the terraces but i also reckon he would also be show an equal amount of respect from fans too .
The biggest problem is playing for TWS , he would just assume all the boos were aimed at him

 

i dont consider myself homophobic nor do i hang onto the old stereotype of the gay male image (john Inman style).
But .... when it comes to women /lesbians i dont follow the straight male porn idea of a lesbian lol , but the butch female stereotype.

I expect there is a larger % of gay women playing football than what is considered societies average percentage .

 

The reason for my saying I believe the percentage would be lower than the percentage of men as a whole is down to a number of factors. these include when you are growing up gay - you tend to feel isolated as a human being (more so than the usual teenage moan of "nobody understands me"), which means they are (without trying to group all gays together - let's not forget Gareth Thomas would not be termed a typical gay) more drawn to solitary pursuits or letting their creative side out in theatre or music where girls/female teachers also tend to be meaning there is not the "male-to-male bonding" or "after game showers" which put gay men off due to the fear of their (if we are to believe some quarters) "dirty little secret".

I actually do think there is a PL player who is gay, just like there has been an olympic diver, international cricketer and international rugby player. But once we get several, then in ten/twenty years time we will be discussing a gay football manager (assuming there isn't one already). We've already had our gay chairman at Watford

 

It's quite interesting that there is no stigma attached to womans football where clearly a lot of players are gay, but the opposite applies to mens football, which must have a lot of players who are gay but completely in the closet. ISTPLT- the footballers may not be overtly camp but if you genuinely wanted to know who was gay a good indicator is looking at the 'well groomed' ones in terms of hair and clothes. I think it's safe to say without it being a stereotype that gay fellas like to take care of their appearance maybe a bit more than your normal hetero guy. Watching the footy today I've seen a few likely candidates.

 

Well that's irrelevant because I clearly stated I didn't believe that all gays are like that.

That isn't what I was saying at all. I was taking the piss out of Bernstein's suggestion that 10% of footballers will be gay because 10% of people in society are gay. You could similarly suggest that 50% of footballers will be women because 50% of society are. Except it's ridiculous...

The stereotypes obviously aren't completely true but they aren't total fantasy either. You should see the lad at my work!

I know what you're saying but I think a lot of young footballers in general fall into the metrosexual category regardless of their sexuality.

 

All this is predicant upon the figure of 10% being true. Personally I couldn't care less, but I just don't believe that 10% of people are homosexual. Frankly, based on personal friendships etc I would think 1% are "gay", 1% Asexual, 8% to shy, awkward or unlucky in love, 80% Hetrosexual, and 10% too ugly for it to matter either way (Leeds fans).

 

I think the ten percent figure is wrong too, maybe 5 percent or less than that.

 

TygerTyger in my school year out of about 80 males so far the figure of gay men to have come "out" is 4 - so that is at least 5% (bearing in mind was a Catholic school - so some people 20 years on are still not comfortable with the "coming out" process). Now whether that is typical or not is open to debate - but until such a question is put onto the cenus, there is no way of getting an accurate percentage