GUEST BLOG: Society has moved on, right? Wrong!

Football fans across the world experience homophobic behaviour during football on a regular basis. In the first of our guest blog entries, Lianne, a football fan and blogger, talks about her own shock of witnessing abuse first hand.

On Sunday I was down at my local pub watching the Liverpool game against Chelsea - the first match I’ve managed to catch since the season began. An excellent result for a suffering Reds fan, but something else troubled me about the afternoon.

Part way through the match I became aware of two kids sitting behind me. The oldest couldn’t have been more than ten, but they both were well-versed in all the usual match rituals – bravado, tribalism and noisiness.

Among the shrill cries of ‘Go on Drog!’ and ‘we’re gonna get you!”, something really threw me off-kilter…

“TORRES IS A POOF!” shortly followed by “Yeah, Torres is GAY and he has a BOYfriend!”.

Finding myself uncharacteristically speechless, I had no reaction but turn round slowly, mouth gaping, before eventually turning to face the front again. I’m ashamed to say I did nothing further.

In part it was because I was met with challenging glares and mutterings from the boys in question, but also I became acutely aware of my own situation as the only non-white person in the pub, as well as one of the few women and there alone. Even if I hadn’t felt so vulnerable myself, where would you begin to challenge such behaviour?

Do you start by explaining that ‘there’s nothing wrong with’ being gay or having any other sexual orientation? Or do you attempt to tackle the more fundamental point that it’s offensive to use terms referring to sexuality as insults? Having never openly experienced homophobic behaviour, I didn’t even know where to start.

More than anything, I think I was stunned because I must have assumed that this kind of thing just doesn’t happen any more. We are in the twenty-first century. Society has moved on from those prejudices, right?

Wrong.

Football is a beautiful but often peculiar game. In some ways it’s very backwards, and I don’t just mean by the neo-Luddite refusal to use video refs. I’m sure it’s something to do with the fact that to many fans it’s keystone of perceived male identity. As with many things, anything that upsets the balance is hounded out so that those doing the abusing can feel confident about themselves.

We (generally) accept that racist abuse is no longer acceptable, and this is probably partly due to significant numbers of high-profile non-white players. The logic is that it would take similarly big stars to ‘come out’ for the fan culture around football to change.

However while the behaviour I saw on Sunday is inculcated in pre-pubescent fans, it’s hardly an open and progressive environment for players to come forward.

Homophobic abuse cannot and should not be accepted, and I know what to do if there is a next time.

Read Lianne's blog at http://weleftmarks.wordpress.com.

Do you want to blog for the Justin Campaign? Get in touch on info@thejustincampaign.com.

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Finally some honesty

Waking up this morning to a phone filled with unanswered texts and emails it was clear something had happened.

The reason: a frank and brutally honest interview by Chelsea's French winger Florent Malouda.

For those of you who have not seen the comments, they have been reproduced in full below.

When asked about homophobia in football he said:

"Before people couldn't even speak about that like they were rejecting it and saying it is not existing.

"People who do it are wrong, hiding behind religion to explain their behaviour against gays, but you have to accept people as they are and once you understand that, you understand our differences are our strength."

To reiterate, this is THE Florent Malouda, one of the best players in the world.

The significance of a top player admitting the denigration of people because of their sexuality cannot be understated.

Credit must also be given to the press team at Chelsea who did not think "oh no we cannot possibly publish this" but actually allowed a player to speak his mind.

Could it be that football club's attitudes are becoming more aligned to the rest of society?

In the interview, which focused on Kick It Out's One Game, One Community week of action, the eloquent Malouda was also very frank about fighting racism on the terraces.

He stated: "You have to prove to others they are wrong and don't accept it. You have to face these people and even if it is a battle, if you have to struggle, you have to prove that there is only one race and that they are wrong to doubt you.

"You have to speak about it. You cannot act like it does not exist."

These are statements about equality which have not been heard before from such a high profile player.

Quite why Malouda felt the need to issue such strong statements is not known.

The recent protesting in France shows that our Gallic cousins do things a little differently when it comes to disagreements with the authorities.

Perhaps it was Malouda, who was brought up in South America, feels he wants to give something back to the beautiful game to which he owes so much.

Or maybe the winger has witnessed homophobic abuse first hand.

It might just be that he sees now - he's 30, in the best form of his life and captain of his adopted country - as the right time to speak his mind.

Whatever the reason perhaps the tide, at last, is turning.