Players can come out as gay to their managers in the latest release from the Football Manager franchise.
Football Manager 2018 will see the addition of a great new feature which the developers hope will result in some more real-life instances of players coming out.
There are currently no openly gay players in the Premier League given the ongoing and completely ridiculous stigma that exists.
Stereotypes of homosexual men somehow being less masculine than their heterosexual counterparts are rife and one listen to the abuse hurled at players from the terraces of grounds up and down Britain makes it quite understandable why gay professionals find it so difficult to come out while still playing.
“Part of the reason we decided to do this is because there are gay footballers,” Miles Jacobson, the game’s director, told BBC Sport.
Picture via BBC“We know from the amount of professionals that there has to be players who are gay but feel they don’t want to come out.
“I find it weird that it’s still a problem in football so we decided to try and show people that coming out isn’t a big deal and can be a positive thing.
“I just think it’s crazy that in 2017 we are in a world where people can’t be themselves.”
The way it works is that fictional players, who appear once depictions of real players retire in the video game, come out and managers find out via a news item which arrives in their inbox.
After that alert, the club’s revenue will receive a slight boost which, according to the fictional commercial director, stems from fresh interest from the LGBTQ community.
“I do think it’s about time that footballers who are entertaining people around the world every week are actually allowed to be themselves rather than act as someone that they’re not,” Jacobson added.
“I look forward to the day where people who work in football feel 100% comfortable with who they are, whatever their ethnicity, religion, or sexuality.”
Homophobia is a serious issue in all sport but particularly in football.
Former Aston Villa, Everton and West Ham midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger waited until he retired before he came out as gay while the tragic case of Justin Fashanu, the first openly gay professional footballer, is well known.
Fashanu took his own life in 1998 after fearing that he wouldn’t get a fair trial due to his homosexuality following allegations of sexual assault.
