TO BE GAY OR NOT TO BE GAY THAT IS THE QUESTION?

Eight footballers tell fellow players 'we're gay' - but refuse to go public in fear of backlash from fans

At least eight professional footballers in English leagues have told their teammates they are gay but do not want to tell the public because they fear fans will turn against them.

Leeds Utd footballer Robbie Rodgers recently came out then retired from soccer
revealing that it would be "impossible" to stay in football and be gay. 

We are all sports fans, golf, tennis, rugby, basketball and football all form part of memories we have from childhood through to adulthood. It is amazing to consider that Justin Fashanu in 1990 is the only player in the last 23 years to come out?! So there are no gay people in sport?!

It comes in the week that basketball player Jason Collins became the first professional sportsman in the United States to reveal he was gay. 

I have been to football matches here and in the UK, some of the worst sexual verbal abuse can be heard on the terraces in Ireland and in the UK. Any "weakness" is taken and used like a weapon to destroy the self-confidence of the player, to know the player is gay gives the "wound-up" football supporter an advantage, that they clench with vemonous glee to dismantle the players character. 

In my working experience as a therapist a denial of self is the ultimate self-harm we can visit upon ourselves. 

So the next time you sit in your comfortable seat at a football ground consider those who play the "beautiful game" it can only be beauiful if it is played and supported in a respectful way, a way which respects a persons sexual orientation but also which remembers that there is a human being running around out there. 

The basketball player Jason Collins wrote: 

'I'm a 34-year-old NBA centre. I'm black. And I'm gay.

'I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different."

So, as a sports fan BE DIFFERENT and make the world a better place.