Is football ready to end its last taboo?
As a teenager, Collin Martin felt he had to make a choice. For as long as he could remember, his ambition was to become a professional footballer, to make a living doing what he loved. However, he felt like it wasn't compatible with who he was. Martin was gay, and – as far as he knew – there were no gay footballers.
These two things, he came to believe, could not coexist. He could play football, or he could be himself. In his story he approached the choice with a cool rationality.
“This doesn't seem like something I can take with me as I chase my dreams,” he said of his logic. “I was more than ready to be in the closet. Forever.” Or at least, he thought, long enough “to make my dream come true.”
In reality the contrast was not that great. In 2018, at the age of 23, and while playing for Minnesota United in Major League Soccer, Martin came out as gay. He was thought to be the only openly gay male professional footballer in the world at the time. There were, he said, occasional awkward moments with teammates, but he found the status tolerable. His fear was misplaced. His sexuality and his profession were not in conflict.
And then, a few years later, his 'nightmare' came true. During a crucial late-season match with San Diego Loyal, in the USL Championship, Martin heard an opponent call him a homophobic slur. He reported this to the referee. Martin was immediately sent away; the official had assumed that Martin was using the slur against him.
What followed was messy and confusing and, from Martin's perspective, unbearable. In images of the match, the referee appears bewildered and lost. Martin's teammates surround him and explain the misunderstanding. His coach, Landon Donovan, is pleading with his counterpart, Phoenix Rising coach Rick Schantz, to remove the player involved. When he refuses, the San Diego players take a knee and then walk off the field.
That scene is the highlight of “The Last Taboo,” a German documentary which charts the experiences of the handful of openly gay players in men's football over the past half century. Compared to the story that opens the film – the ostracism, abuse and eventual suicide of Justin Fashanu, Britain's first openly gay professional – it's hard not to feel heartened.
Martin may have been abused and Schantz may not have understood the gravity of the situation, but the player had the support of his teammates, his coach and his club. They were all willing to sacrifice a game – and a crucial game – for a principle. That alone illustrates that football is certainly a more hospitable place now than it was in Fashanu's time.
This also applies to the story of Jakub Jankto, the Czech international who came out as gay last year. In the weeks following his announcement, there was great concern in the Czech Republic about how he would be treated. Not so much by his teammates – they were “fantastic”, he said – but by the opposition fans.
In the film, the scare focuses on a match against Banik Ostrava, one of the biggest rivals of Jankto's then club Sparta Prague, a few weeks after his announcement. Their gatherings are always tense, the kind of occasions that warrant riot police and prowling Belgian shepherds. Everyone believed that Ostrava fans would shower Jankto with homophobic insults; Football's shameful recidivism would once again become visible.
When race day arrived, nothing happened. Jankto came on as a substitute. His name was announced in the stadium. There was no booing, no jeering and no coordinated expressions of homophobia. He ran onto the field. The game was restarted. Everyone went on with their lives. “It's not a story anymore,” said Thomas Hitzlsperger, the former Germany international who came out of the closet after his retirement.
It is difficult – regardless of the medium, but especially in film – to grasp the meaning of a story that is no longer a story. Quiet disinterest doesn't make for a particularly compelling or emotional finale. It's a triumph in many ways, proof that a battle has been won, but somehow it feels unsatisfying.
And yet it is crucial that those stories are told. That there are many more gay players in the men's game than the handful that have come out publicly is not really in dispute, even if the evidence for this is necessarily anecdotal, the math vague and the tone of the discussion around it somewhere between cheerful gossip . and outright witch hunt.
It is equally clear that the majority still feel as Martin once did, as if who they are and what they do are in irreconcilable tension. At one point in 'The Last Taboo', Matt Morton, a player and manager in England's lower leagues, lists all the openly gay players in the professional game. He only has to use their first name.
Of course, there is a chance that will never change, that football will never create an environment safe enough for everyone to feel comfortable being who they are.
Martin is a little more positive than that. He is quite a sunny character in terms of character. He has a wealth of stories detailing the difficulty of being on the outside and being a footballer; the fact that he has been able to build a stable career and realize his dream does not mean that it has not been a challenge.
However, he prefers not to dwell on the most difficult times. “Telling those stories doesn't help the next person,” he told the filmmakers. He believes it is much more constructive to focus on the aspects of his life and career that will reassure others that who they are and what they do are not diametrically opposed to each other.
His experience in that game against Phoenix is instructive. As his teammates leave the field, Martin lifts his jersey above his head. What he feared most became reality: his sexuality literally prevents him and his team from playing football. He is visibly distraught.
But as his teammates walk past him, they extend their hands to pat him on the back, tousle his hair: small and powerful gestures of solidarity and sympathy. They couldn't understand exactly what he was going through, but they knew he was suffering and they were on his side.
Looking back on it now, that's what Martin wants to take away from that incident. Not the suffering – painful and acute – but the support he received and the symbolism of the moment. He believes this will help others realize that deciding between who they are and what they do is not a choice they have to make.
Cancel your plans
Last weekend was a remarkable weekend on the football calendar. In the space of about 24 hours we had the Madrid derby, the meeting of Italy's two main contenders, and a clash between the sides who will finish second and third in the Eredivisie. Before, during and after it felt like the first really decisive weekend of the season, the moment when the build-up ends and the denouement begins.
That was just an appetizer, though; the main event is yet to come. Saturday starts with Jordan taking on Qatar in the Asian Cup final. A win for the hosts would mean Qatar retains its status as continental champions. It seems Qatar is actually quite good at football now. Perhaps that was always the goal of the 2022 World Cup.
A few hours later, another uncomfortable fairytale comes into view: Girona, the plucky underdog in the Spanish title race that, unfortunately, is owned and operated by a huge network of clubs owned by a nation state, travels to Real Madrid, hoping to add another leg to their unlikely title challenge.
By those standards, the meeting between Bayer Leverkusen – Big Pharma FC – and Bayern Munich offers a fairly obvious hero. Bayer Leverkusen are undefeated this season, have a historic reputation for suffocation and are overseen by European football's brightest young coach. Bayern has won 138 Bundesliga titles in a row and has grown so tired of winning the championship that it occasionally appears to be actively trying to find ways to implode.
And to top it all off, there is the final of the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday. In a sense, everyone wins here: a win for the host country, Ivory Coast, would be an astonishing end to a tournament that started with such poor results that the country fired its coach. A victory for Nigeria could signal the re-establishment of Africa's great superpower in the offing. Either way, it's probably worth clearing your journal.