Government report details plans to make homophobic abuse at football matches an illegal offence
MPs expressed their ‘dismay’ at the slow progress being made to rid the sport of abuse in a wide-ranging report
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Your support makes all the difference.A government report has detailed plans to amend the Football Offences Act 1991 in order to make homophobic chanting at football matches illegal.
The report, released by the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS), highlighted the committee’s “dismay at the slow progress” in ridding homophobic abuse from football.
The review into the impact of Covid-19 on sport in Britain, led by 11 cross-party MPs, claimed that “the current football business model is not sustainable”, while also stressing concerns over the lockdown’s effect on elite women’s sport.
There are currently no male players in England’s top four divisions who have come out publicly as gay.
“Committee members recorded their dismay at the slow progress in kicking out homophobia from football. MPs would seek to continue work of the predecessor Committee to amend the Football Offences Act 1991 to make homophobic chanting at matches illegal,” the report read.
In a meeting with the DCMS’s select committee on 7 July, Labour MP Clive Effort asked former England international Eniola Aluko about past comments relating to players coming out privately to their teammates.
Asked to clarify her claim, Aluko said: “Yes that’s right. I think there’s been rumours and all sorts of newspapers that try to get the exclusive on who this player may be.
“Ultimately I think there are statistics that say of course there would be gay players, and I think the beauty of it is actually 99.9 per cent of players would say ‘I wouldn’t care if my teammate was gay’. The issue really now is that fear of what fans will do and are going to say, but I don’t think that is as legitimate a fear as it used to be because we’re living in a world now where being gay is something that is widely accepted.
“Yes, you will be subjected to abuse on social media as women are, as black people are – there’s so much – but I do think now, let’s say if a current Premier League player comes out as gay, they will be widely praised, applauded, lauded and respected.”
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