Jake Daniels was not a name on my radar prior to last week, when the 17-year-old Blackpool midfielder valiantly became the first active professional footballer since Justin Fashanu, hounded to an early grave in 1998, to come out as gay. Some speedy back of the napkin calculations go some way to informing us why this shouldn’t be considered a surprise — conservative estimates put the LGBTQ+ population at somewhere around one in twenty, and there are around sixty-five thousand registered players according to Fifpro. Nevertheless, Jake Daniels' announcement remains a major epochal shift, and the very presence of a queer player on the pitch should go a long way towards thwarting the ridiculous notion that football is exclusively the realm of heterosexual, cisgender men.
That I’m the only queer football fan to ever exist, ill-fitting in the stands and erroneous among the gays, is a joke frequently made at my expense. It’s manifestly untrue — there’re dozens of us! — but does speak to the alienation the lion’s share of queer people feel in the face of the beautiful game. The pint-chucking machismo, relentless tribalism and idolisation of sporting stars can still be perceived as antithetical to a culture that worships pop queens and is wedded to the arts, traumatic memories of brutish school changing rooms notwithstanding.
I’ve been a member of a queer football team, the aptly named Stonewall F.C., for the last year. I play five-a-side (badly) with them every Thursday. The group are a broad church of men identifying across the queer spectrum and, indeed, a number of straight allies, including my best friend of twenty years. Some would consider themselves less culturally queer, which is to say not so inclined to engage with queer art, nightlife, movies, or social circles; others, like myself, wear our queerness on our sleeves. The unifying trait: we all share this pair of allegedly duelling interests, finding beauty and identity in both, and indeed, in confluence. Stonewall isn’t the only LGBTQ+ team out there: the London Unity League, in which gay squads exclusively play, is formed of ten teams. And that’s just the capital. Our WhatsApp group met the news with heart and rainbow flag emojis. As of last week, I should imagine we all feel a little less like outliers.
England’s sporting world has immediately encircled Daniels as a revolutionary, a pioneer at the pointy end of a watershed moment; “brave” has been the watchword, echoed by Olympic diver Tom Daley, Man U goalkeeper David de Gea, ex-Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand and too recently out former Aussie footballer Josh Cavallo. The Sun’s Karren Brady wrote that it simply “shouldn’t matter,” with which I’m inclined to agree — well, duh — if not for the snide hypocrisy of it being published by a tabloid with a history of anti-queer prejudice, not least relatedly their front page Fashanu “confessional,” that is a matter of record.
Daniels’ decision has certainly resonated and hopefully it allows him to live a fuller, more open life – surely the critical point here, somewhat overlooked amid the grander stakes. But this simply shouldn’t have taken so long. Among my queer friends who, as the aforementioned joke follows, simply don’t get my footballing proclivities, I’ve always been a staunch defender of the sport; the tide has been turning for a while, as evidenced by the groundswell of pro-queer, inclusive initiatives pursued by top-tier institutions and clubs (see: the Rainbow Laces campaign, the manifold LGBTQ+ fan groups supported by the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United).
Nevertheless, it is to football’s great detriment that a culture of casual hostility towards queer people has been allowed to remain at the terrace level, so much so that a publicly gay player in 2022 is a such a profound event. Homophobic chants and jibes have not yet been relegated to the past. Brighton fans are derided for their (largely) fictional boyfriends, by dint of the city’s historical profile as a gay mecca. It took until this January, even, to legally qualify that “rent boy” — the insult historically thrown at Chelsea players — is, quelle surprise, loaded with homophobic intent.
There is, too, the cash-stuffed, pinkwashed elephant in the room: the next World Cup, at the end of the year, will be hosted in Qatar, where male homosexuality remains punishable by imprisonment (execution is the penalty under sharia law, but that has never been enforced). FIFA has sought to reinforce that LGBTQ+ fans are welcome at the event, so long as Qatari traditions are “respected,” but there isn’t any moral justification for the greatest global sporting tournament to be hosted by a country that seeks to persecute an entire minority group. Say Daniels was in the running for a spot in Gareth Southgate’s November squad: would the present solidarity keep? If not for the fact that queer people would inevitably be blamed England missing out on a golden opportunity, and it wasn’t practically speaking already far too late, a boycott of the World Cup would be our moral obligation. There’s a fair argument to say it still is.
Daniels has absolutely opened doors. The optimist in me would like to think that he can be something of a diplomat, ushering in a new era of détente, with closeted players now equipped like never before to come out. That said, present events — unprecedented threats to abortion rights in the United States, the ever-gurgling beast of transphobia within the pages of our domestic broadsheets — show that, to paraphrase one truism, history doesn’t proceed in a straight line. There are going to be hurdles, and complacency remains a deep risk. We know what happened to Fashanu, who felt taking his own life was his only option following years of homophobic abuse.
Thirty years later, we are only just reaching a bare minimum of acceptance of LGBTQ players. Sad though it is, Daniels will be the victim of homophobia both on and off the pitch. What will be telling is how well he is supported by a wider game currently professing it cares, and whether the institutions flying rainbows will put their money, when it matters most, where their mouth is.
NOW READ
Ronaldinho on Pep Guardiola, Sir Alex Ferguson and not signing for Manchester United
The first football match broadcast in the metaverse was a bit of a flop
