Gay Soccer Players 'Bridging the Gap' by Coming Out, Says Team Manager

A new documentary features a soccer club manager saying that gay players are "bridging the gap" between those who feel comfortable embracing authenticity and those still clinging to the closet, the BBC reported.

Openly gay Thetford Town FC team manager Matt Morton, a former player himself, is featured in "Rylan: Homophobia, Football and Me," the BBC detailed. Morton spoke to the trickle of players who have emerged from the closet recently – a trickle that could presage a torrent in the future, but that in itself seems like a lot given the near-complete absence of our players up until a few years ago.

"In the last four or five years since I came out we've had five times the amount of players do that as we had in that 30-year period before," the BBC quoted Morton saying.

Morton, who played for Thetford Town FC before becoming team manager, was careful to specify that he was not advocating for forcing anyone out if they are not ready.

"We're bridging the gap, and hopefully that continues, but the important thing is that we can't rush this and we can't force people into coming out just for society and the good of the game," he said.

"It has to be for the good of the individual and they have to have the right support, infrastructure and confidence to be able to do that themselves," Morton added, "and they shouldn't be rushed or pushed to do that any earlier than they're comfortable doing."

Morton "came out to his teammates in 2019," the writeup noted, "and said the response had been 'overwhelming positive and emotional,'" a not-uncommon refrain from formerly closeted players from around the world such as Josh Cavallo, Jake Daniels, and Jakub Jankto – all of whom have come out in the past few years and expressed satisfaction for having done so.

That said, homophobic abuse from fans remains a problem, and the memory of Justin Fashanu – a British footballer who came out in 1990 but tragically committed suicide in 1998, a year after he retired from the sport – looms large.

Addressing the lingering problem of abuse from the stands and on social media, "Mr Morton blamed homophobia in football on the culture of the sport, misconceptions of sexuality and players and fans trying to get 'an edge' on opponents," the BBC relayed.

An advocacy group called Kick It Out told the BBC that "discrimination at all levels of the game remained 'a serious issue,'" though the group also noted that "a rise in reported incidents suggested fans were more inclined to report offenses."