BarcelonaNo La Liga player has ever said he was gay. In the entire history of men’s football, worldwide, only eight players have decided to speak openly about their homosexuality. The king sport is still one of the bastions – and it seems indestructible – of homophobia. While the feminine has become a space where homosexuality is more normalized, in the masculine it is a taboo which shows that there is still a lot of work to be done.
“For me there has never been another option other than to deal naturally with my homosexuality,” says Paloma Pujol, five-time world champion in footbag (sport that involves touching a ball filled with seeds or sand with your feet without letting it fall to the ground). “If I had a superpower right now I would take several footballers, both active and retired, but who are very famous, and I would make them express that they are supporters of the LGBTI group. The day footballers start doing this on their own initiative they will begin to normalize these situations”, says the champion of Spain en freestylewho admits that the situation in women’s and men’s sports is almost the opposite.
The trickle of male athletes from different disciplines who have decided to speak openly about their homosexuality is more constant than years ago, but there are still sports, such as football, where the cases can be counted on the fingers of the hands. “In fact, it’s easier to come out of the closet when you practice an individual sport, because you don’t need the approval of the person next to you,” reflects Pujol. The pressures of organizations, teams, teammates and even the pressure you impose on yourself have meant that so far this year only eight footballers have started to pave the way.
However, in women’s sport the situation is different. “In women’s football, for example, we have Mapi León, who shouts it out and proudly explains it, and then there are others who are afraid of what might happen. Surely, those who do not want to talk about it at home they’ve been told to be careful with these things. There are homes where, instead of living it naturally, they think, ‘Hey, people don’t care what you do in your private life as long as you’re playing good football’. I know it’s my private life, but if I’m a public person, I’m going on vacation and I want to take a picture with my girlfriend, so I want to give it total normalcy. If she was a boy, I would do everything so normally,” claims Pujol.
“Society sees two girls together and doesn’t perceive it as something ugly, because we are in a patriarchal society,” radiographs the freestyler. “Boys see it and think: ‘It’s nice in my eyes’. Instead, they think that seeing two guys is not. The day they see that it’s not all about them and realize that the rest are people who have the right to love and do what they want they will see that it is something that exists in the world and that has nothing to do with them or what they think, and that they have no right to judge,” he emphasizes.
References are required
“I, in my life and on the networks, am openly homosexual and I find 12-13 year old girls who write to me and say: ‘I don’t know if I’m a lesbian’. I always ask them why they doubt what they feel. And they tell me that they play soccer and some of their teammates, who are already starting to say that they like boys or girls, and they don’t know it yet, and then they decide to ask me because I’m open about it. They are references are very important because, otherwise, these girls would have no one to ask,” confesses Paloma.
References make girls and boys see “that what they do is okay”. “Statistically, there are gay footballers in the League, and for one of them to come out of the closet is very necessary,” claims Paloma. “It’s true that I sometimes wonder if a super-famous footballer who came out of the closet could fear for his life. I think the average fan would accept it, whether he’s for it or against it, but there are radicals too and here I don’t know anymore. I think that if a retired footballer was gay and suffered from a terminal illness, then he would say so.”