• First NBA player to come out says some coaches are ‘emotionally illiterate’
English football has been far too slow to tackle an environment where homophobia is still sometimes “tolerated” and gay players are scared to come out, a parliamentary committee was told on Tuesday. The warning came from the former NBA star John Amaechi, who said he was in contact with Premier League players who were afraid to be open about their sexuality because they knew their clubs and managers would not be supportive.
Amaechi, the first NBA player to come out in 2007, told MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee that there were “multiple” reasons why the gay Premier League players he knew had not come out, including fears of how they would be treated by their clubs. “Some of them feel that their team specifically would not be supportive,” he said. “Not their team-mates, but the coaches, the club, and the administration around them. They either know them to be openly hostile, having stood in conversations or having overheard conversations that were incontrovertible, or suspected it. It is interesting how many of them I know are out to a greater or lesser extent to their family, friends, and a selection of their team-mates. It’s amazing to me that people don’t realise that there are lots of players whose ‘manager’ picks them up after training – and that can’t always be the case.”
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