Just now was it that I started to think differently.
Josh Cavallo was welcomed in Australia with a overwhelmingly positive reception. Jake Daniels, a Blackpool teenager, did the exact same thingThings seemed to be going well. They’d not been hounded, there was a refreshing absence of people telling them “to keep that sort of thing to themselves” and there was a positive trickle-down effect, with Scottish referees Craig Napier and Lloyd Wilson talking openly about their sexualities before striker Zander Murray did the same.
It seemed that football, its fans, and its media were beginning to grasp it. The LGBT+ community, who love football, began to wonder if this game was for them.
And then came Sunday’s Iker Casillas-shaped bump in the road, with the former Spain Real Madrid goalkeeper tweeting “I hope you respect me: I’m gay. #happysunday”.
The rest of the story was bizarre, frustrating and depressing.
The fan responses were first, with many well-meaning congratulations being met by homophobic jokes and calls for Casillas not to be broadcast by Qatari television station beIn SPORTS. And, perhaps most bizarrely, a response from Barcelona legend Carles Puyol, which made you wonder if things weren’t quite as they seemed.
“It’s time to tell our story, Iker,” he tweeted, complete with heart and kiss emojis. You can expect more memes and slurs.
It seemed a little too out there, and it needed to be corroborated, especially as this was a sensitive subject. The statements were also very short and lacking detail.
