A “gay match”: everyday homophobia and imposed heterosexuality
Do you know how many soccer players around the world are openly gay? And how have they been perceived? In 2018, the issue remains taboo and makes both players and fans uncomfortable.
Sylvain Ferez, University of Montpellier
Admittedly, recent polls have revealed that 85% of French people consider homosexuality in football to be "acceptable," and several initiatives have been launched by associations to combateveryday homophobia and raise public awareness, especially since the 2018 World Cup is being held in Russia, a country considered to be particularly homophobic.
However, these campaigns, declarations of principle, and issues of public expression and language policing have their limits. They even seem to reinforce the veneer of political correctness, overshadowing a multitude of practices that persist and whose meaning has ultimately changed very little.
Behind a practice that presents itself as neutral and universal, de-sexualized in a way, it is a question of unearthing the deeply heterosexist culture in which it is rooted.
Rare coming out
In 2009, in an autobiographical book titled I am the only gay soccer player. Well, I was..., amateur soccer player Yohan Lemaire explains the unexpected cost of coming out to his teammates.
The scenario he describes corresponds to experiences documented by North American sports sociology. It unfolds in three stages. First, the fear of speaking out, and efforts to control any signs that might betray this fear (even to the point of projecting an appearance of heterosexuality to avoid questions) in an environment perceived as extremely hostile.
Then, curiously, it is the surprise of not being excluded that dominates after the announcement, which is experienced as an ordeal, given the numerous signs of hatred towards homosexuality that have been recorded over time. The expected outburst of violence does not materialize. However, heterosexist culture does not disappear, slowly leading to the self-exclusion of those who can no longer tolerate it...
Is it for these reasons that very few players have publicly acknowledged their homosexuality? And that those who have done so have sometimes paid a heavy price?
Gay football players?
In May 1998, just before the World Cup, a tragic event shook the world of soccer.
Justin Fashanu, considered one of the great hopes of English soccer, took his own life eight years after revealing his homosexuality to The Sun newspaper in order to silence rumors. His announcement had the opposite effect. He quickly became the scapegoat for fans and his professional circle. At Nottingham Forest, his own coach did not hesitate to echo the insults of the club's fans and call him a "dirty faggot." He had to change teams several times.
In 1998, the LGBT monthly magazine Têtu ironically commented on the invisibility of homosexuality in professional soccer. When, in September, "the Barthez mystery" concerning the possible homosexuality of the French team's goalkeeper made headlines, the magazine questioned the presence of "one or two rare gems" among the 22 players of the French team that had recently won the World Cup. It goes on to show that many players claim to be heterosexual by default, or simply avoid any publicity on the subject. (Têtu, no. 27, p. 7)
Desexualization
This heterosexual normalization is inseparable from the very history of modern sports.
The latter constituted autonomous practices, separate from other social activities, during the second half of the19th century (read La raison des sports by Jean-Michel Faure and Charles Suaud (2015)). The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) was created in 1904, followed by the French Football Federation (FFF) in 1919.
Physical engagement in the game involves a de-sexualization of bodies, a neutralization of their erotic power. The purpose is primarily utilitarian. Contact with other bodies is instrumental. Sexuality is kept at a distance. Here, motor skills must be precise and effective. Collective expressions of joy (when a goal is scored or to celebrate victory) do not change this. They resort to ritualized expressions which, from the point of view of those who produce them, do not imply any sensuality.
In fact, if soccer hints at sexuality, it does so indirectly and obliquely, by performing a cold and pragmatic masculinity.
The latter is based on two assumptions: 1) sexuality is out of the question; 2) there is no place for gay people.
This is why the gay and lesbian magazine Têtu took an early stand against football culture by hypersexualizing top-level footballers and seeking to identify gay players among them.
In June 1996, Eric Cantona was included among the icons of the "new gay generation" featured in the fourth issue of Têtu. This strategy of eroticization continued, not without irony, after the 1998 World Cup, when an article focused on "Zidane's butt" and "Barthez's goatee," followed by "Pirès's slutty mouth" (Têtu, no. 33, April 1999).
The soccer player, that ever-straight body
Apart from these exceptional media appearances, the footballer's body remains subject to heterosexual injunctions.
In France, Olivier Royer is the only professional soccer player who has publicly revealed his homosexuality, in 2008, at the age of 52, long after the end of his career.
His testimony follows efforts by the Paris Foot Gay (PFG) association to put the issue of homophobia in soccer on the media agenda.
Created in December 2003, this association of soccer players called on the management of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), who committed in 2004 to fighting homophobia in the stands of the Parc des Princes stadium.
In 2005, Vikaj Dorasso, a PSG player selected for the French national team, agreed to sponsor the PFG. The latter initiated a charter against homophobia in soccer. It was signed by the president of PSG on September 5, 2007, then by the president of the Professional Soccer League on June 8, 2008. Nine Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs signed up to the charter in the months that followed.
However, on September 29, 2015, a terse press release announced the dissolution of the PFG, stating that:
"Faced with widespread indifference, the fear of institutions to truly commit, and the shame some feel in addressing this issue, we must face the facts: we are no longer able to advance our fight against homophobia."
Paris Foot Gay/Wikipedia, CC BY
A deeply rooted homophobic culture
Ten years after Olivier Royer came out, no other professional soccer player has disclosed their homosexuality in France.
However, there has been a proliferation of discourse and initiatives aimed at "combating homophobia." Despite the increase in official positions, displayed as part of carefully orchestrated communication plans, something still resists change, because it is more a matter of unofficial attitudes and what is conveyed in small everyday gestures; in short, a matter of culture.
Homophobic attitudes are rarely expressed publicly. Of course, some people sometimes make this mistake.
In October 2009, this was the case for the Créteil Bébel club, which, on the eve of a match against PFG, sent an email justifying its refusal to participate in the game:
"We're sorry, but given the name of your team and in accordance with the principles of our team, which is a team of practicing Muslims, we cannot play against you. Our beliefs are far more important than a simple soccer game. Once again, we apologize for notifying you so late."
The national media and elected officials quickly seized on the case, pointing to it as an expression of the "rise of communitarianism." Vilified, the club ended up making amends... Had it not made the mistake of writing, or saying too clearly, something that is usually expressed in less explicit ways?
Also in 2009, Louis Nicollin, president of Montpellier Hérault Sport Club, was caught on camera. On October 31, 2009, at the end of the12th day of Ligue 1, he called Auxerre player Benoît Pedretti a "little faggot" in a television interview. A sanction was imposed on Nicollin, who was well known for his verbal "slip-ups." A regrettable communication error was acknowledged, attributed to his outspokenness, and an apology followed.
"Fag shot"
However, homosexuality is far from absent from soccer fields. What is striking above all is the gap between its imaginary omnipresence and its invisibility in reality. It thus casts a heavy shadow, insidiously established as a counter-model.
His specter always appears in negative. The terms "faggot," "asshole," and "queer" inevitably characterize the other, the adversary, the one who misses his technical move (a "faggot shot"); in short, the one who fails or those who cause boredom (in front of a "faggot game").
The insult is repeated redundantly, out of force of habit. When someone uses it, they have no sexual ulterior motive. It is simply a way of describing something bad; in short, of subscribing to the collective designation of a negative value.
The sexuality of the person targeted by the insult is not really called into question. Their heterosexuality is culturally obvious, as is that of the other participants.
A way of subtly conveying what "footballers" should be. A way of reminding people not only of the values shared within the football family, but also of the sexual orientation that is supposed to embody them.
Thus, soccer, as a media fiction governed by unofficial rules, with its figures and scripts, its players-actors who attempt—more or less in vain—to "control their image," leaves little or no room for narratives that deviate from the "norm."
Sylvain Ferez, Senior Lecturer, Sociology, University of Montpellier
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.