John Amechi, the British basketball player, has announced he is gay.
Amechi

There must be gay athletes out there, footballers included but you can see why they would wait until they retired to announce it. Will things ever change or will gay athletes always have to keep this quiet?

Ok by me. Just wouldn't go for leap frog......

Or having a shower after the game could have a different meaning.

Sorry does not bother me at all.

The only 2 who I can think of who were openly gay during there careers are an australian rugby league prop who's name I can't remember and the American diver Greg Louganis.

I think maybe the fact that they were the best in the world at what they did made it much easier for those 2 to come out as being gay.

Is Carl Lewis gay, or is it a figment of my imagination?

Daley Thompson (twat) tried to say he was. Lewis has never come out though.

What about Fatima Whitbread. He claimed to be a woman.

I have no problems with sportsmen or sportswomen being gay but i think that it is an unfortunate reality that ost will have to remian in the closet until they retire, which is one of the main reasons that i have so much respect for mauresmot, or however you spell her name, as she has faced the problem head on and been openly lesbian for years while still competing at the top end of her sport.

It didn't do Navratilova any harm.

I think its easier for a gay woman than a man. Also for somebody who doesn't play a team sport.

Are you sure Greg was a diver?? Thought he was gay.


I agree with other comments about team sports v individual events, think the sad story of Justin Fashanu comes to mind, in this day and age though i think peoples ignorance is not what it was, and with PC as it is, it must be easier to come out i would think.

Im still not gonna though..

I think Daly Thompson having a twat is completely different to being gay

(is it the thing over his top lip btw?)

Things wont change for a long time. 442 did a feature on a similar theme a while back, and the reporter was asked by footballers who 'The Benders' 'Gay Boys' etc were. Attitudes like that aint gonna encourage people to come out, especially when they are fellow pro's.

i think that while society has piss poor attitudes towards homosexuality in general this trend will continue.

big money sponsors or teams in the public eye will shy away from signing gay stars for fear of the backlash it may cause. this in turn will make those gay stars refuse to come out untill they are happy they have earned all they are gonna do from thier sport.

FA to address homophobic chanting

The FA have acted in response to complaints about fans' behaviour
Homophobic chanting is to be explicitly banned at football stadiums for the first time by the Football Association.
Ground regulations currently warn that "racial and other discrimination" can lead to ejection, or even arrest if it is sufficiently serious.

However, a spokeswoman for the FA said the rules are changing to specifically mention homophobic behaviour.

All Premier League and Football League clubs have signed up to the rules, which come into force next season.

"Traditionally, the rules were there to police racism at football matches," the spokeswoman said.

"But homophobic abuse was something that has been highlighted to us, and we are taking a strong stand against it. It was implicit in the rules, but now it's absolutely clear."

thanks for that, ya big puff....... :lolanimate:

It would take a very brave footballer to come out and admit being gay, I remember they were talking about this in talksport and apparently England have a really good gay team, apparently there's three gay teams in the whole of England and they're not a bunch of panasies by many an account..

Personally, I'm not bothered..

Maybe if one big name star came out then there might be a few more (I'm Spartacus....no I'm Spartacus etc) but I can't see it happening.
Personally it doesn't bother me if someone's gay no matter what they do for a living.

Changing the subject ever so slightly, but I found a comment by H while in Big Brother very interesting. He was known to be gay, but hadn't "officially" come out, so to speak in the media, and he said he could make a fortune by naming the number of male actors/singers/stars who had asked him out. Massive stars is how he described them, and people wouldn't believe who they were. There are gay footballers and athletes out there, the same, just as in the showbiz world. They just keep it quiet to save getting any stick.

but see him saying he could name them that'd be a kick in the balls for someone to be outed when they arehn't ready and they might spend years trying to get over it, so i don't think that was any real need for him to make a comment like that. We all know that there are high profile Gay people out there who haven't come out yet but i do not think that it is anyones perogative to out them before they are ready to deal with it themselves.

"Gordon McQueen is a homosexual"

I remember "Jordan and McQueen are homosexuals" after they both signed for scum.

i thought your mans name in hollyokas was john paul mcqueen.

:lolanimate: Sorry Col, couldn't resist......

I used to really like Hardaway as well


This is probably a big reason many gay athletes won't come out whilst playing.

just read that and i must admit i did laugh not at hos comments but at how stupid and naive one person can really be.

My knowledge of basketball isnt the greatest but didn't Hardaway and Amechi play together at Orlando.

Another point on this that i have just found out from something that I've read today is that in some States in America you can be sacked for being gay. 2 of the states that have this law were Utah and Florida where John Amechi spent a lot of his career so basically had he come out he could have been fired by those teams for no other reason than being gay.

I don't think Timmy ever played for the Magic. Penny Hardaway did, maybe thats who you were thinking of (although not sure if he was there when Amechi was).

Yeah I'm thinking of Penny Hardaway. And he probably wasnt there at the same time as Amechi.