Justin Fashanu remains the only ever openly gay footballer
BBC Sport presenter Mark Chapman presented a documentary focusing on homophobia in sport on BBC One on Monday evening, he talks about his experiences making the programme.
From BBC Sport
Over the past few weeks I have been called naive, stupid, brave, predictable, slow, cumbersome and astonishingly, cute. All this, because I was making a television programme.
Mind you, all that was nothing compared to some of the name-calling suffered by the people I have been interviewing.
Former Wales rugby union international and now rugby league player Gareth Thomas, former British basketball star John Amaechi, tennis legend Martina Navratilova and All-Ireland hurler Donal Og Cusack have all tried to help me understand why in 2010, 10 years into the 21st century, we have only ever had one openly gay footballer in this country.
It was 1990 when Justin Fashanu announced his sexuality to the world via the front page of the Sun. It was 1998 when his body was found in an east London lock-up. He had taken his own life.
His story, his experiences and more than anything else, his death still dominate the subject. 'No player will come out because look what happened to Justin Fashanu' is a common argument.
When I mentioned on Twitter I was writing this documentary, Fashanu was mentioned in one of the first tweets I got back.
But as much as we cannot ignore Fashanu, what part do the media play, the fans, the companies who plough billions into the sport and the players themselves?
Is any one of them more responsible than the rest for the fact that other sports can deal with openly gay players and football seemingly cannot?
You can view the documentary in three parts below:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
