CELTIC captain Scott Brown insists fans’ chants are to blame for gay players not coming out.
The 34-year-old revealed in the summer that he’d love it if a gay footballer came out at the Hoops but admitted that it must be hard.
Hoops skipper Scott Brown insisted that he’d be the first to support a gay player at CelticCredit: Reuters
Speaking to Paddy Power alongside Graeme Souness, he said: “If one of my players came out at Celtic, I’d support them. I would be the first one.
“If someone came out in our dressing room it would be amazing. I think the first person to ever come out, it’d be possibly the best thing to happen.
“For that to happen, it’s going to be hard for somebody to come out, but they need to realise we’re very open, it’s 2019.”
On whether everyone would support a gay player coming out, he added: “I don’t think you can possibly say that 100 per cent would. I’d like to look around the changing room and it would be a vast majority, all day long.
“I have a best friend who is gay, and he went through hard times and he couldn’t pick up the phone to people. He had to phone on withheld numbers to try and chat to people.
“It’s a hard subject when you don’t realise that, but for me, the support he’s had and to see him now with a smile on his face and he’s able to chat about when he’s been through hard times.
“Everyone has been through hard times, and I get that, but to see him now with his boyfriend and the two of them are getting married at the end of the year, it’s great to see.”
I think the biggest problem is chanting. You don’t want your kids learning that and growing up hearing people slagging other people for being gay
Scott Brown
Brown hit out at the biggest problem facing gay players in today’s game with abusive chanting rife inside football grounds.
He added: “In terms of when players are travelling to games, I think the biggest problem is chanting.
“I’ve had it, Graeme (Souness) has had it, and we take it on the chin but there’s families in the crowd now, it’s a family sport. You don’t want your kids learning that and growing up hearing people slagging other people for being gay. It’s not nice to hear, especially in this day and age.
“As a player we hear all sorts of abuse daily, to be perfectly honest.
“Whether it’s people driving down the street shouting things at you. It becomes part of my life, it becomes part of Graeme’s life. And I think you’ve just got to be strong and deal with that.
“Because if you let those people get to you, you’re eventually going to be an emotional wreck.
“We do a lot for racism now in the game, we’re trying to help out as much as we possibly can, but this is the first thing that I’ve really done (for LGBT) and for me to be a part of this is amazing. But we need everyone to do it, not just five or six people.”
Liverpool legend Souness believes fans who are guilty of homophobia at matches should be banned forever.
He said: “We cannot have something so archaic, something that should have been addressed tens of years ago, if not hundreds of years ago, in football.
“That you can’t go to a football match without hearing, and again I’m trying to use a term that’s acceptable, a ‘village idiot’ being responsible for poisoning the atmosphere for the decent people who go to football matches.
“You’ve got to get hold of him, and physically throw him out or just call the police, and he should be banned forever – “You’re never coming back, you’re not wanted.”
Scott Brown and Graeme Souness were speaking as part of Paddy Power’s anti-homophobia football campaign, in partnership with GAY TIMES.
Scott Brown on talented Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
