Professional male footballer Josh Cavallo comes out as gay in world first

Probably a good career move for him. Now he has name recognition around the world. When will a truly famous one come out.

He must be the 50th first current footballer to come out as gay.

Why did they use that pic of him -- in that odd "gay" pose?

Soccer players look underfed.

The coming out video starts with Josh channeling Nancy Kelly in THE BAD SEED.

He’s the first top professional soccer to come out while playing

R6 - he’s a bottom or I’m Queen Elizabeth.

How come Australian men always manage to look the same (big noses, small mouths, close set eyes)? Given his name I would've thought he's not even a native, but he has that look.

Yeah, every other week.

We're reaching the point where soccer players will be coming out as straight. These days I just assume they're gay until told otherwise.

He’s cute. Nice eyes.

Always nice when these younger people come out as gay and not some other made up label.

The photo is annoying, R3 is right. Why pick the pose where he’s kicking the ball in a really odd way?

Why’s everyone staring at us?

But is he hung like a cavallo?

I think we emboldened him.

Total BOTTOM twink.

Gay?

HIM??

Liverpool Captain Jordan Henderson was the first British player to tweet support.

That’s why he should be England’s Captain again, too.

Beautiful Claudio Marchisio

This is really great. It will really be someone for a lot of people to look up to. Good on him.

He is dreamy.

No-one cares about Australian footballers. Good career move for him though. He'll get a few diversity sponsorship deals.

Because there is nothing genuine about you doesn't mean there is nothing genuine about someone else- especially someone as young as him.

He does sound genuine, but does anybody genuinely care that a lower-rate Australian footballer is gay?

This is positive news, and a heartwarming act of personal bottle on the lad’s part. Can’t be easy for a player in any dressing room to have that conversation with teammates and lay it out for fans like that, not knowing if anyone will react badly and target you.

Realistically, though—as others have said, while it matters greatly in general to global pro-sport as a whole, it won’t make a good deal of difference in terms of top-flight football. It just won’t, sorry. An active and well-established starting XI player in a top side playing in La Liga, Serie A, or English Premier League would have to come out to create the necessary earthquake of change that will make it safe for young stars of the future. Sad to say, the one to come out who changes the game has to be a player with a lot to lose who basically just cracks and spills one day.

Oh, I thought you meant REAL football. Never mind.

Good for him. Every little bit helps acceptance around the world.

Supportive tweets have also come in from Tyrone Mings, Captain for Aston Villa FC and centre-back for England national team.

We should Tweeterbook him some encouragement or something.

R6 Robbie Rogers came out while playing for the LA Galaxy.

Pics please.

Jahmal Howlett-Mundle of Sheppey United came out in the summer.

Not exactly a pro player or a team of which anyone’s heard, but still. The reaction from his teammates and club is sweet.

Good for him, and good for us!

Has CR7 commented?

I'd bet money that they searched all the pics that were available and picked that one in particular.

Nice to see that all these footballers who "take the knee" before a game, have tweeted support!!!!! Footballers - apart from the ones mentioned above, are the most homophobic bunch going!!!!

Hence why they will all be off to Qatar soon for the World Cup - fuck gay rights!!!!!!

Definite twink-bottom energy

[quote] they will all be off to Qatar soon for the World Cup - fuck gay rights!!!!!!

Yes, the hypocrisy really does rankle.

Footballers are mostly so dim and so venal that this moral quandary probably hasn’t even occurred to them, though.

For everyone who likes to mock sports fans in the USA for being homophobic, read the responses to Cavallo's statement on Twitter, or even better, to any of the European clubs/players who have supported him. Jesus Christ.

Any top-level player in soccer who comes out is going to need an army of bodyguards 24/7 to protect him from the murderous dregs of the third world. As amazing it would be to see someone like Cristiano Ronaldo come out, looking at that deluge of hatred, I understand why it will probably never happen.

It's always good when a player comes out. Maybe some day one who's as attractive as the straight players will.

Where are the nudes?! It’s been a whole day.

Gay face for days. No Robby, I am afraid. But kind of cute.

R40 Meanwhile the very few male athletes who have come out the US have been embraced with open arms. The NBA player years ago was completely embraced, Robbie Rogers was a fan favorite and people are loving Nassib. Sometimes they make juvenile jokes but generally speaking they are accepted by teammates and fans alike. And the leagues they play in.

[quote] Has CR7 commented?

Jo, but R2D2 has.

It read:

“Beep boop boop boop beep, squeak, beep beep boop.”

I think it was done through his publicist.

didn't know who he was, saw pictures online with the news, pings so hard!

It helps that most current professional footballers are young millennials and Gen Z.

Generation X was still probably 50% homophobic.

Are you watching, Luke Shaw?

[quote] It helps that most current professional footballers are young millennials and Gen Z.

R47 true, at least from an EPL/EFL standpoint. In the U.K., and staff these days are almost ubiquitously cool with openly gay men & women in the game. Several Managers and Captains have even given open press statements asking players to feel safe coming forward with their sexuality, reassuring them that their clubs and leagues will do their best to protect or at least defend them from the worst harassment.

Here, when it comes to homophobic abuse it’s really only the older contingent of fans and critics, especially Casuals/Ultras, that are the worry. Visit some of the more antiquated forums, and you’ll read the kind of invective (they’ll call it ‘just banter’) that these older straight men still obliviously bandy. Sad to say, but these men will essentially have to age out and die before those attitudes completely go away (which could take another twenty or thirty years, st least).

Overseas and in other leagues big and small it’s another matter, of course. For example, my BIL’s straight younger brother plays for Egypt’s national team, and when I asked him whether it would be possible to have a known gay/bi player in the squad, he gave a rueful little smile and said that they’d be dropped and chased out with violence or threats at best, arrested and tortured at worst. So there’s that.

R44 I‘m with R41. The essential part is that the athlete needs to be hot, otherwise I could care less….

[quote] otherwise I could care less….

If you could, you should.

Good for him!

Desperate for a current England national team player to take the step. It would be so positive 💓

Every player who does chips away at the old prejudice, and they’re all important.

Talking about this with my 60-something football-fan father today, and hearing his negative cruel response, I realise how different the culture is now to what it was, and how much progress has been made—that even if the elder stalwarts still try to hold back the tide, they won’t win in the end.

[quote] How come Australian men always manage to look the same (big noses, small mouths, close set eyes)?

R8 felon/deviant/undesirable genes.

[quote] These days I just assume they're gay until told otherwise.

R10 something about the profession of footballer is inherently quite a bit gay.

Just young men wearing shorts, sweating and sliding and horsing around with other young men, on a lush patch of grass, with competitive passions heating up, until 90 minutes or so are up and it’s all chummy in the showers after....hmmmmm.

The media don’t even have to do much to play up the ‘bromance’ fanservice angles for clicks, either. Pull up any two or three or four players, give them some silly task or challenge or quiz to do on camera, start rolling, and watch the flirting commence.

Giroud has posted in support (some of the responses to his post are really ugly).

Haven’t all 🐸 s had a chill same-sex encounter or several in their lives as a rule, whether gay or straight identified? I just thought that was something they all did.

The same ocean of shit as followed the other posts, r57, virtually all of the worst venom posted by Arabic speakers or Africans. But by all means, open the borders!

R3 what’s so gay about the way that he’s kicking the ball? It’s football - that’s how you kick the ball.

Facts

It’s quite obvious that many top-flight players have road-wife arrangements on the road or during the season, similar to bi/gay rockstars. I can think of dozens who act just like couples, and probably were or are effectively ‘together’ behind closed doors.

Perfect set up, if you think about it—football circles, from academy kids to WAGs to management, are essentially ringfenced in secrecy, and no-one wants to be the grass to violate that and lose all their privileges.

There’s lads being lads or mates being mates, then there’s whatever this⤵️ is.

[quote] Perfect set up, if you think about it—football circles, from academy kids to WAGs to management, are essentially ringfenced in secrecy, and no-one wants to be the grass to violate that and lose all their privileges.

Can you translate that?

R63 it means many people working in or involved with pro-football at a high level have easy jobs and enjoy a very comfortable and expensive lifestyle. Therefore, none of these people want to bring extra stress or drama into their own lives or the lives of their associates/friends, by outing themselves or outing gay players/staff. Anyone in the industry who did come out or out someone would lauded by English media and some fans, but on the flipside would also be tarred and feathered by huge foreign fanbases (particularly African, Arab, and Asian), and may well lose lucrative promotional deals from overseas. To come out is thereby disincentivised—just doesn’t seem worth the hassle or the relative deprivation for most.

The gay seagull team Brighton & Hove Albion are doing far better in the table than they have in decades, which can only mean good things for the community.

Didn’t quite get the win against LFC today, but it was near as damnit.

R60 ignore comments like that, they’re just phobic shit-stirring trolls.