If only Gareth Thomas was a Footballer

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News broke over the weekend that current Welsh rugby player and former captain of Wales’s team is gay. Affirmations from team mates and top brass swiftly followed, with news emerging that some teammates had known for some time, underlining a culture of acceptance, at least within the close-knit team, if not the sport at large. The impact of such a brave emergence by a current player from what is arguably the most macho of all sports remains to be seen, but clearly it represents another crumbled brick or two in the wall of homophobia.

Welsh Rugby Player Gareth Thomas in Action

The timing of such a positive story could not be better in a month when debate on Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill is heating up. While the release of Thomas’s story is clearly coincidental – not a planned response to the negativity of evangelical propaganda – the message could not be clearer: coming-out for the sake of openness, honesty and truth, as opposed to oppression and repression.

However, will Gareth Thomas’s story reach the eyes and ears of Ugandans? For those committed to either cause – LGBTI rights or rugby – the answer is a resounding ‘yes.’ Doubtless it may prove fodder for groups who claim homosexuals are taking over in every field. But these people must be thanking their lucky stars that it is not a football star who has decided to live openly. As wonderful as rugby is, it has no where near football’s following in Uganda – or Africa at large.

Thomas himself suggested that statistically he cannot be the only current player who is gay – a principle which surely applies to all sports. Other commentators have suggested that there are homosexuals in football’s Premier League – apparently closely guarded secrets – none of whom have come out. Too much to lose? Doutbless.

But think of how much there would be to gain. Soccer is the beloved continental sport in Africa, not only for entertainment, but frequently used as a development tool to encourage children to attend school, to motivate communities to work together and to raise funds for basic services. More than that, international soccer players are revered throughout the continent. The dangers and pitfalls of hero-worship aside, the emergence of LGBTI soccer players has the potential to normalise sexuality in eyes of a huge number of people – and show that LGBTI people can actually excel in this world and even – if you can imagine – potentially provide children with superb role models. More than that, the open display of a game that chooses not to make sexuality an issue has the potential to show that teams, communities and even countries can function with people who happen to be gay. A blow against Ugandan propaganda.

That said, the burden of the anti-homophobia agenda does not rest on the courage of gay football players. True, they could blow a hole in the aforementioned wall of homophobia, but the fact remains that their private lives – and how much they choose to share – are very much their own affair. Theirs is a game of survival too; the soccer top brass, the all-important cheque writers may not all react as positively as Gareth Thomas’s bosses.

As several commentators have suggested, better altogether if sport – and all cultures and societies – can reach a stage where such an emergence barely causes a ripple, where it is not even necessary. Until such a time, the bravery of public figures will remain crucial; chipping away at the wall.