Footballers team up to support gay rights

Some of the biggest names in Australian football - including Brownlow medalists Jimmy Bartel and Adam Goodes - have signed up to the project run by the AFL Players' Association.

The sportsmen have been photographed holding hand-written signs calling for acceptance and understanding.

Adelaide player Brett Burton is pictured with a placard reading: "We all have our little differences - celebrate them!" Geelong football manager Neil Balme's reads: "Homophobic His-story!"

Former Australian rugby league representative Ian Roberts said he was delighted AFL personalities had adopted a serious approach to the issue.

"Touche to the AFL," Roberts said yesterday. He was the first openly gay player in rugby league. "Obviously they've recognised there's a massive problem and they're finally doing something about it ... Something's got to change and this is a positive reaction by positive people."

The AFL project is not unique, however. Players from the Penrith Panthers league side have posed for This is Oz - an online photo gallery of people united against homophobia. Players including Luke Lewis and Tony Puletua were photographed holding a placard which read: "Being different makes us strong." The image will feature on promotional postcards, available later this month.

In rugby union, Australia's first all-gay club, the Sydney Convicts, is playing its part in bringing about a new era of understanding. The Convicts - winners of the Bingham Cup in Dublin in 2008 - hope to bring the World Cup of Gay Rugby to Sydney in 2012.

English football failed in its attempt to start a campaign similar to the AFL's this year when players refused to take part.

AFL Players' Association culture and leadership manager Pippa Grange said every player approached had signed up to the project immediately.

"They were open and supportive of efforts to reduce hatred and invite inclusion."

Research to be published next month determined gay men in Victoria feel that Australian rules is the most homophobic football code.

The Victoria University survey of 308 adults found the most common sports that men would like to play but did not, or felt they could not, were Australian Rules Football (45 per cent), rugby (17.5 per cent) and soccer (10 per cent).

Dr Caroline Symons, an author of the Come Out to Play report, said gay men saw the AFL as a "hostile environment". Overall, 46 per cent of those surveyed who played mainstream sport were not openly gay. Many feared being judged and abused. "One day, people might view sexual preference as no more important than hair colour," she said. "But that day has not yet come."

COMING OUT ... IN ENGLAND

THE Premier League shelved an anti-homophobia campaign in February after footballers refused to back it. Gay chairman of the league's anti-homophobia group, Peter Clayton, said: "It would take a very courageous Premier League footballer to come out because fans are so vociferous in football in a way they aren't in other sports. There are gay players ... some of them are out to their clubs and teammates and no one gives a jot."

... IN IRELAND

DONAL OG CUSACK is the only gay player to have "come out" in either of the two local sports: Gaelic football and hurling. Cusack, one of the country's top athletes, became the most talked about in Ireland when, last October, he announced he was gay in his memoir. Since then he has suffered accolades and abuse, equally. Cusack said he "had a duty" and didn't wait until his retirement to make the announcement.

... IN THE UNITED STATES

NO PROFESSIONAL team sportsman has ever come out as gay, although a few have after they retired. In 1975, David Kopay, a former running back for the San Francisco 49ers, was the first retired NFL footballer to come out. The second is former Washington Redskin Roy Simmons who came out in 1992. The most recent is Esera Tuaolo, who played for the Atlanta Falcons in the 1999 Superbowl.