Where are the gay South African sportsmen?

Seventeen-year-old Blackpool midfielder Jake Daniels has been all over the news in England recently, after becoming the only active professional footballer in the country to publicly come out as gay.

It has taken a teenager to break the long-standing stigma, and the odd troll on social media aside, the announcement has mainly been met with the love and acceptance one would hope for.

There are those that ask why anyone should care, in this day and age, about someone’s sexuality, yet if this is true, how is it that there is only one active professional footballer in England who is openly gay?

Nobody can seriously tell me or anyone else that there are no others – as a profession, sport just seems to create an environment where it is seen as near-impossible for a man to profess his love for other men.

In societies like the USA, Australia and the UK this is changing, albeit painfully slowly. Players like Carl Nassib and Jason Collins have broken the mould in the NFL and NBA, Australian footballer Josh Cavallo came out last year, while Welsh rugby star Gareth Thomas came out in 2009 and English cricketer Steven Davies did the same in 2011.

It is not like there have been a stream of announcements to match the likely amount of gay men across professional sport. Doors, however, are being opened, and any young man struggling with his sexuality, particularly in the world of sport, can at least now look to someone like Daniels as a role model.

In South Africa, however, the amount of out gay men in professional rugby, cricket and football, to take from the nation’s three main sports, currently stands, to my knowledge, at zero.

There have been strides in amateur sport, with inclusive rugby clubs like Jozi Cats, while Phuti Lekoloane seems to be the only openly gay soccer player at any level in South Africa, the former JDR Stars man showing immense bravery in being outspoken about LGBTQI causes.

“My purpose in life is to pave the way for the LGBTQI community in football, to fight for inclusion and equality,” Lekoloane told New Frame.

“There are a lot of gay footballers, but they are scared to come out. I have met a lot of gay guys who had to retire from football because of discrimination.”

Lekoloane’s words are deeply sad, that players are not able to fulfil their potential, and quit the game completely because of discrimination over their sexuality. As a gay football-lover and football journalist, it has taken me some time to come to terms with my own sexuality.

“Are you a moffie?” one coach once asked me, as I was just beginning to come out to friends and colleagues, and clearly the whispers were flying around.

That this coach felt comfortable using such homophobic language perhaps speaks of how such prejudice is rife in South African dressing rooms.

Elsewhere I have been told that culturally, PSL players simply can’t come out. “You just can’t be gay in football,” another coach said to me.

Yet if players “can’t” come out, because of a cultural stigma, then surely that culture needs to change. It’s tiring to see people hide behind religious beliefs in the name of homophobia. And it’s even more exhausting to see entire governments, many in Africa, hide their hatred and lack of acceptance of others behind laws making homosexuality illegal.

Even as Jake Daniels was coming out, former Senegal midfielder Idrissa Gueye was making news for being left out of the Paris St Germain squad, after refusing to wear a shirt in support of gay rights.

To show how endemic homophobia is on the African continent, Gueye was then backed up by Senegal president Macky Sall, who tweeted: “I support Idrissa Gana Gueye. His religious beliefs must be respected.”

The point is surely that if religious beliefs preach discrimination, then they should not be respected at all. South Africa at least has a constitution that protects gay rights, even if in practice homophobia is still rife within our society. There is legal room, in other words, for a brave South African male sportsman to come out of the closet.

I believe that the only way to break a stigma, or a “can’t” is to act, and I also believe that while there will be hate, society in South Africa is changing enough that an out gay professional sportsman in South Africa would largely find the same acceptance and love the Daniels did. Not to mention that they would break the mould for others. Perhaps that makes me wildly optimistic, but in current times, what else do we have?

After Orlando Pirates won the 2014 Nedbank Cup, a photo emerged on Instagram of Buccaneers players in the dressing room after the match, that led to some frankly unpleasant rumour-mongering about their sexuality.

More interestingly, Buccaneers’ coach at the time, Vladimir Vermezovic, was quoted as saying this: “I do acknowledge that some of my players have disclosed to being gay, but this is a private matter which should be treated with the kind of sensitivity it deserves. What my players do behind closed doors is none of my business, as long as they perform on the field.” 

This was a refreshing take, from a professional sports coach in South African and he is right, it is none of his business. In truth, it is no one’s business, yet society puts sport so much in the public eye that it can truly be a vehicle for change.

In South Africa, this was evidenced nowhere more than in the way Nelson Mandela used sport as a vehicle to unite a country, as the Rainbow Nation found itself in the midst of deep civil unrest post-apartheid.

Can you imagine how it could help other young men struggling with their sexuality, if an elite South African sportsman was to come out, gay and proud? Never mind how it could help the individual.

“I needn’t have worried,” Daniels told Sky Sports News on his coming out.

“I’ve had so many messages saying, ‘we are proud and we are supportive’. It’s been amazing. I couldn’t have wished for it to go better.

“The day after I told my mum and sister, we played Accrington [in an under-18s fixture] and I scored four goals, so it just shows how much of a weight off the shoulders and what a massive relief it was.”

Kudos to you, Jake Daniels. When will a South African sportsman have the courage to break the mould?