A "queer match": ordinary homophobia and enforced heterosexuality

Do you know how many footballers in the world embrace their homosexuality? And how have they been perceived? In 2018, the question remains taboo and makes players and fans alike uncomfortable.

Sylvain Ferez, University of Montpellier

Recent polls have shown that 85% of French people consider homosexuality in soccer to be "acceptable", and a number of actions initiated by associations aim to combatordinary homophobia and raise public awareness, especially as the 2018 World Cup takes place in Russia, a country considered to be particularly homophobic.

These campaigns, whether they be petitions of principle or issues of public expression and language policing, have their limits. They even seem to contribute to reinforcing the veneer of political correctness, leaving in the shadows a multitude of enduring practices, the meaning of which has evolved relatively little.

Behind a practice that presents itself as neutral and universal, de-sexualized as it were, the aim is to exhume the profoundly heterosexist culture in which it is embedded.

Rarely coming out

In 2009, in an autobiographical work entitled I'm the only gay soccer player. Enfin j'étais...amateur footballer Yohan Lemaire explains the unexpected cost of his coming out among his teammates.

The scenario he describes corresponds to the experiences recorded by North American sports sociology. It unfolds in three stages. First, the fear of telling, and then the efforts to control all the signs that might betray him (to the point of producing the appearance of heterosexuality to avoid questions) in an environment perceived as extremely hostile.

Then, curiously, it's the surprise of not being excluded that dominates after the announcement, experienced as an ordeal, so many signs of detestation of homosexuality recorded over time. The expected outburst of violence never came. But heterosexist culture does not disappear, leading slowly to the self-exclusion of those who can no longer bear it...

Is it for these reasons that very few players have publicly declared their homosexuality? And that those who have, have sometimes paid a high price?

Fag footballers?

In May 1998, just before the World Cup, a tragic event shook the soccer world.

Justin Fashanu, considered one of English soccer's great hopefuls, took his own life, eight years after telling The Sun newspaper that he was gay in order to silence rumors. His announcement had the opposite effect. He quickly became the scapegoat for the fans and his professional environment. At Nottingham Forest, his own coach was quick to echo the insults of the club's supporters, calling him a "dirty aunt". He had to change teams several times.

In 1998, the LGBT monthly Têtu ironized about the invisibility of homosexuality in professional soccer. When, in September, "the Barthez mystery", concerning the possible homosexuality of the French team's goalkeeper, hit the front page, the magazine wondered about the presence of "one or two rare pearls" among the 22 players in France's recently victorious World Cup squad. And shows that many players claim to be heterosexual by default, or simply avoid any publicity on the subject.(Têtu, n° 27, p. 7)

De-sexualization

This heterosexual normalization is inseparable from the very history of modern sports.

During the second half of the ^nineteenth century, sports were seen as autonomous practices, separate from the rest of social activities (see La raison des sports by Jean-Michel Faure and Charles Suaud (2015)). The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was created in 1904, followed by the Fédération Française de Football (FFF) in 1919.

Bodily involvement in play implies a de-sexualization of bodies, a neutralization of their erotic power. The aim is above all utilitarian. Contact with other bodies is instrumental. Sexuality is distanced. Here, motor skills must be fair and efficient. Collective expressions of joy (on the occasion of a goal or to celebrate victory) do nothing to change this. They resort to ritualized expressions which, from the point of view of those who produce them, imply no sensuality whatsoever.

In fact, if soccer suggests sexuality, it's in an indirect, roundabout way, by portraying a cold, pragmatic masculinity.

The latter is based on two implicit assumptions: 1) there can be no question of sexuality; 2) there is no place for gays.

That's why Têtu, a gay and lesbian magazine, took an early stand against soccer culture, hypersexualizing top-level footballers and seeking to identify gays among them.

In June 1996, Eric Cantona was one of 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, after "Zidane's rump" and "Barthez's goatee", focused on "Pires's f... mouth"(Têtu, No. 33, April 1999).

The footballer, the body that's always straight

Apart from these exceptional media outings, the footballer's body remains subject to heterosexual injunctions.

In France, Olivier Royer is the only professional footballer to have publicly revealed his homosexuality, in 2008, at the age of 52, long after his career had come to an end.

His testimony follows on from the work of the Paris Foot Gay (PFG) association in putting the issue of homophobia in soccer on the media agenda.

Created in December 2003, this association of footballers called on the directors of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), who committed themselves in 2004 to fighting homophobia in the stands of the Parc de Princes.

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 Ligue de Football Professionnel on June 8, 2008. Nine Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs signed up to the charter in the following months.

But on September 29, 2015, a terse press release announced the dissolution of PFG, stating that:

"In the face of notable indifference, the fear of institutions to make a real commitment, and the shame of some in dealing with this subject, we have to face the facts: we are no longer able to advance our fight against homophobia".

A deeply rooted homophobic culture

Ten years after Olivier Royer came out, no new professional footballer has come out in France.

Yet there has been a proliferation of discourse and initiatives to "combat homophobia". Despite the multiplication of official positions, displayed within the framework of regulated communication plans, something resists in spite of everything, because it belongs more to the register of the unofficial and what is transmitted in the small gestures of everyday life; in short, to a culture.

Homophobic attitudes are rarely publicly acknowledged. Admittedly, some people sometimes make this mistake.

In October 2009, Créteil Bébel sent an e-mail on the eve of a match against PFG to justify its refusal to take part:

"Sorry, but in relation to 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 match, again apologies for warning you so late."

The national media and elected representatives quickly seized on the case, pointing to an expression of the "rise of communitarianism". Vilified, the club ended up making amends... Did it not make the mistake of writing, or saying too clearly, a discomfort and rejection that are usually expressed in less explicit forms?

Also in 2009, Louis Nicollin, president of Montpellier Hérault Sport Club, was caught on the radar. On October 31, 2009, at the end of Ligue 1 matchday ¹², he called Auxerre player Benoît Pedretti a "little tarlouze" in a TV interview. A sanction was issued against the player, well known for his verbal "slips". A regrettable communication error was conceded, attributed to his outspokenness, and an apology followed.

"Fag shot"

Yet homosexuality is far from absent from soccer pitches. What's striking, above all, is the discrepancy between its imaginary omnipresence and its invisibility in the real world. It offers a heavy shadow, insidiously instituted as a counter-model.

Its spectre always emerges in the negative. The "faggot", the "cocksucker", the "faggot" inevitably characterize the other, the opponent, the one who misses his technical gesture (a "faggot shot"); in short, the one who fails or those who arouse boredom (in front of a "faggot match").

The insult is repeated redundantly, according to the force of habit. When called upon, the person who utters it has no a priori sexual ulterior motive. It's just a question of qualifying the evil; in a word, of subscribing to the collective designation of a counter-value.

The sexuality of the person targeted by the insult is not really in question. His heterosexuality is a cultural given, just like that of the other participants.

A casual way of saying what "footballers" should be. A way of recalling not only the values shared by the soccer family, but also the sexual orientation that is supposed to embody them.

Soccer, as a media fiction governed by unofficial rules, with its figures and scripts, its players-actors of spectacle who try - more or less unsuccessfully - to "control their image", leaves little or no room for a narrative outside the "norm".

Sylvain Ferez, Senior lecturer, sociology, University of Montpellier

The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.