Football Tied Up In Knots

 

There’s been quite a furore about rainbow laces this last week. Not a big furore, I grant you. Nowhere near as vociferous as the furore over certain players refusing to don ‘Kick It Out’ t-shirts last season. Not even close to the furore that greets every incorrect goal-line decision, offside, handball or penalty claim made, in split-second-impossibility by referees, then dissected cruelly by couch-dwelling pundits . Lower, also, in the furore stakes, than one player viciously biting another. And certainly a fraction of the furore caused by a club’s star player reportedly itching for a transfer.

Come to think of it, perhaps ‘furore’ was a poor choice of adjective. Give me a moment. ’Outcry?’ No. ‘Inquisition,’ perhaps? Definitely not. Ah! I’ve got it! There’s been a (barely audible)…

…’Whimper!’

Right. I’ll start again.

So, there’s been a barely audible whimper about rainbow laces this last week. Indeed, you could be forgiven for failing to notice the story at all, so buttock-clenchingly apologetic the coverage has been. It’s come as something of a surprise to me just how childish the world of football is when it comes to the issue of (whisper it quietly and, please, feel free to snigger) homosexuality in the game.

We all know that there must be countless gay footballers playing the game professionally, many at the highest level. And we know this, not because some bespectacled nerd in some far-away office has crunched some numbers, correlated some figures and produced a set of statistics that prove that it must be the case. We know because we live in the real world, where homosexuality, to the overwhelming majority of us, is as natural-a part of our everyday lives as our morning brew. We know and like and love gay people, be they friend, family member, colleague, fucking milkman… who cares? We go to same-sex marriages and civil partnerships and experience the same joy and happiness as we would attending ‘conventional,’ heterosexual ceremonies. We drink in gay bars and revel in gay villages and enjoy gay festivals and listen to gay musicians and admire gay actors…I could go on.

The point is, to all but a few strange, stagnant, seemingly shit-scared people, who continue to harbour the delusion that they, and they alone, are keepers and protectors of the delicate strands of society’s ‘moral fibre’ (whatever the fuck that is), homosexuality ceased to be a big deal, or even a deal, many pink moons ago.

Which begs the question, why does football continue to dwell in the dark ages?  

Common answers tend to revolve around football’s ‘lad’ culture. Yet this strikes me as being woefully inadequate. Are we expected to accept that football’s history as a hooligan’s haven prevents it from, not promoting, for God’s sake, but at least accepting the existence of homosexuality within its ranks? Are the crowds that flock to bear witness to football matches up and down the land, week after week, made up solely of lagered up louts these days? No. They include women, children, old, young, black, white, Asian, Christian, Muslim and, yes, gay.

Then there’s the suggestion that ‘normal,’ heterosexual players, or real men, if you will, would feel uncomfortable if one of their team-mates came out. ‘It would alter the dynamics of the changing room and drive a stake into the heart of a team’s spirit,’ so the argument goes. Now, I know that footballers aren’t, generally, the sharpest tools in the box. But are they really so shallow, so ill-informed, so paranoid and vain, as to feel mortally threatened by a team mate that happens to fancy boys, as opposed to girls? I mean, really? Because, if so, they really are being paid too much. Yes, of course, there will, as in wider society, be those amongst them who have difficulty coming to terms with such a radical development; who will assume that the moment their hairy back is turned, they’ll find themselves being brutally rogered by a primal, demonic, insatiable queer but, surely, we have pandered long enough to the repressed fantasies of these mindless few?

Whether you describe the footballing world’s reaction to the rainbow laces debate as a furore, a whimper or a farce, the very fact that we’re fumbling about with such pathetic gimmicks in 2013 is a shameful and damning indictment on the world’s most watched and most popular sport.
I
t’s called the ‘beautiful game.’ Surely it should be enjoyed, and played, by all.