There are still no openly gay or bisexual professional footballers in Britain – but one goalkeeper has explained how women’s football is very different.
Indeed, former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Chloe Morgan has said the sport is a “safe haven” for her.
The 30-year-old gay player has just retired from the London club, better known as Spurs, after five years.
She told the BBC LGBT Sport podcast:
“I think women’s teams generally understand pretty well that there are usually members of the LGBTQ+ population on a lot of these teams.
“It was always very well accepted, I never assumed any prejudice or discrimination of any kind.
“It has become a bit of a refuge for me. I knew there were other members of the community who felt the same as me, (who I could) count on to have their back if something happened.
“It definitely weighs on me to know that the football community is a place where I don’t need to hide a certain part of myself.”
While at Spurs, Morgan had a full-time professional contract. It’s relatively rare in women’s football. By comparison, far more male players are full-time professionals, and goalkeepers in the UK earn up to £375,000 a week ($472,000-$418,000).
Fan abuse increases
Meanwhile, women’s football is attracting more and more support. The 2019 Women’s World Cup was a breakthrough in the sport’s profile and featured at least 41 openly gay and bi players.
But with the popularity, Morgan says there has also been an increase in enemies attending the games.
She said: “I started to see a bit of a change in attitude around the 2018/19 season. At that time Spurs were gaining momentum, we were considering promotion to the WSL (Women’s Super League) and there were quite a few eyes on us, a lot more fans were coming to our games.
“I started seeing a different subsection of fans, those who didn’t always come to support you. Sometimes they came in with the intention of distracting you or making you feel uncomfortable so you wouldn’t perform well.
“There have been several times during this season where I have suffered abuse from the fans. It wasn’t about being black or LGBTQ+, it was just general abuse to make me very uncomfortable.
“Women’s football is going to gain momentum and support – which is fantastic. But you’re going to run the risk of bad people starting to come to the games.
“I wouldn’t want that to discourage families, young women and young boys from coming to matches.
“I think we need to start looking at game safety and promoting that positive mentality with fans so that players and fans feel well supported in this area.”
Transphobes have also targeted women’s football in the UK in an attempt to prevent trans women from taking part.
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