Brighton event to address homophobia in football
Kick It Out, the Football Association’s group for tackling homophobia and racism, is holding an event next week to discuss the problem of homophobia in football.
The event will be held at Brighton and Hove Albion on Tuesday October 27th and has been organised in conjuction with the Justin Campaign, which was named after Justin Fashanu, the only openly gay footballer.
The panel will include Brian Oliver of the Guardian and Darren Ollerton from the Justin Campaign. It will be hosted by the BBC’s Richard Reynolds.
Although some former Brighton players will be attending, not one current player has said they will join the debate.
Other guests will be Brighton fan Norman Cook AKA Fatboy Slim and the heads of Albion In The Community Steve Ford and Alan Saunders.
Kick It Out director Piara Powar said: “We’ve been campaigning to rid our game of discrimination for some years now. And we¹ve made significant headway.
“Black players are commonplace and ethnic minority communities are getting closer to the game . However there are still no openly gay players and casual abuse of many players has homophobic overtones.
“We want to use this event to pose some questions and look at unearthing some answers, as to why the world of professional football remains hostile to the openly lesbian, gay and transgender sections of the population.”
For more information on the event or to register your interest in attending, please email [email protected] or call 020 7684 4884
