There is not a single openly gay player in the English Premier League, nor is there one at any team in the top four soccer leagues in England. It’s essentially statistically impossible that there are not dozens of closeted gay men among the thousands of players on these 92 teams, yet none are comfortable or secure enough to be out to the public.
But the league doesn’t want you to worry about that pesky fact. Because at least the team captains all wear rainbow-colored armbands for a few games each year!
Premier League players are wearing rainbow captain’s armbands and laces this weekend to show support for the LGBT community pic.twitter.com/cx05yWRzv7
— B/R Football (@brfootball) December 5, 2020
Soccer is one of my only apolitical hobbies I use to escape the day-to-day drudgery of political conflict. I sit quietly by or hit fast-forward when the Premier League’s incredibly diverse cast of multimillionaire players does its silly, meaningless taking-of-the-knee before each match to signal solidarity with the racially oppressed (or something). I don’t say a word when the soccer world melts down over “racism scandals” that literally just involved a Romanian referee describing someone as “black.”
But as a gay man who has played and followed soccer my entire life, I simply can’t stand the empty corporate virtue-signaling of the Premier League’s stupid rainbow armband scam. Each team captain has trotted out on to the field with the silly little accessory to show solidarity, winning media plaudits and fan accolades.
It’s just an empty act.
While outreach efforts to make gay fans feel more welcome from the likes of Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson are kind and welcome, the league overall remains hostile for gay players. It’s not the fans, to be clear. Although incidents of homophobic chants or whatnot do still occur, more than two-thirds of fans said they’d feel fine if a player on their favorite team came out. And that was way back in 2009! The sources of the problem are the players and team cultures.
According to retired players and managers, the Premier League teams’ cultures are like those of most professional athletics teams, with heterosexuality and macho notions of masculinity ingrained into the cultural foundation. Whether it’s crude jokes about women or the names they use to describe players who act weak, the background culture of soccer makes gay players feel unwelcome.
This isn’t to say that a gay player would be stuffed into lockers or directly insulted with slurs. It’s more that it would change the way their teammates view them, negatively affect their branding, or put distance between them and their coach — all things that in the world’s most competitive soccer league can endanger your entire career. Agents have explicitly advised Premier League players not to come out for this reason.
As woke as the league’s corporate messaging might seem, many of the players hail from very unwoke countries where homosexuality is illegal or highly stigmatized. No individual foreign player from a homophobic country necessarily holds the majority views of their home nation. But only a fool would think they left all their beliefs in their home country, as if the rainbow flag on the stadium grounds saps the homophobia out of the foreign players upon arrival. Additionally, the last several decades of Premier League history are rife with evidence that domestic players have their own fair share of homophobic attitudes.
This is the biggest reason that no players have come out in any of the top four English leagues. Only a few players have come out even after retirement.
“Would a player mind if he found out a teammate was gay? Probably,” former pro Tony Cascarino said in 2006. “Players wouldn’t want to be left alone with him. They wouldn’t want to shower with him.” The lack of openly gay players gives no reason to think anything has changed.
You don’t have to take my word for it that the league’s culture remains hostile for gay players. Consider an open letter written in July 2020 by a closeted anonymous Premier League player: “I don’t feel ready to share [my identity] with my team or my manager. … I spend most of my life with these guys and when we step out on the pitch we are a team. But still, something inside me makes it impossible for me to be open with them about how I feel.”
“The truth is I just don’t think football is ready yet for a player to come out,” the player continues. “The game would need to make radical changes in order for me to feel able to make that step.”
No number of corporate branding initiatives will accomplish this change. Yes, meaningless rainbow armbands will garner media plaudits and support from woke progressives on social media, allowing the league to prosper financially. But they won’t do anything to actually catch the league up with modern culture.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor.
