In 2015 we were told two gay footballers would be coming out at the same time.n 2016 an MP said three gay footballers were talking to the FA about coming out.In 2017 a former Leeds United exec said he knew of 20 gay Premier League and Championship players.We’ve seen plenty of hoaxes and false stories before about gay athletes coming out in English soccer: No one had gotten any inclination of who this person was. He was tweeting at young sports reporters offering to bring them to him to do an interview.īy Tuesday - despite saying 48 hours earlier he would be having a big press conference on Wednesday to announce who he is - no one we knew in the British press had received an invitation to the alleged press conference. He was telling the world he had a secret, yet he was telling everyone where to look. He claimed to be early-20s but wrote like mid-50s. instead of just announcing the news itself. He publicly announced his intention to announce he’s gay. In the coming days and weeks it had all the markings. Yet my colleague and I thought from the first days we heard about the Twitter account that it could be a phony. The Twitter account and its claims raised the hopes of many who believed that we would finally see another Championship or Premier League player on the pitch during matches.
The Twitter account had garnered about 50,000 followers since he posted his initial message on July 5 that said he was a professional soccer player in the English Football League and would be coming out publicly.
Tuesday morning I was messaging with a colleague speculating how “Gay Footballer” on Twitter was going to get out of his self-declared coming-out date of Wednesday.