In the run up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup that begins shortly, GLBT rights organization, Stonewall partnered with Football Addicts, the developer of the Forza Football app, conducted an anonymous poll asking football fans if they would be comfortable with a member of their national team coming out as gay. The poll resulted in 30,000 responses from 29 countries, and while it’s not a scientific poll by any means, it’s nonetheless illuminating.
Form the countries that provided more than 500 responses to this gay attitudinal survey, Sweden and Denmark tied for 79% acceptance of a gay international, followed closely by the United Kingdom at 73%. Southern European nations of Portugal and Italy clocked in at 69% and 68% respectively, followed by the Netherlands, arguably one of the most liberal of European nations which came in with 65% acceptance. Simultaneously encouraging and depressing, Mexico returned 56%, Belgium 55%, Switzerland 54%, Germany 53% and the United States came in at 52%.
Among those countries with less than 500 respondents, the responses are more statistically unreliable, demonstrated by the surprising result of 83% acceptance from respondents in Ireland, though other than that outlier, the results seem to indicate more of less what one might expect, with Columbia, Poland, Turkey, Greece and Thailand all scoring in the 40-49% range, Malaysia at 36% acceptance, Russia at 21%, Indonesia at 14%, Saudi Arabia at 12%, followed by a tie for last place between Kuwait and UAE at 7%.
Says James Taylor, the head of policy at Stonewall, “Over the last 10 years we have seen great strides in attitudes towards lesbian, gay and bisexual people, sadly, our national game has not moved as far or as quickly as other parts of society. It’s clear that more needs to be done to tackle homophobia not just in football, but sport more generally. Stonewall will continue to work with the professional bodies and clubs at all levels to improve the game for gay players and gay fans. These stats show that our mission is just as vital today as ever.”
It’s interesting to note that Sweden is the only European domestic league to have had an openly gay player, Anton Hysen, while former German international Thomas Hitzlsperger waited until he had retired to come out, and Robbie Rogers, formerly of Leeds United, came out after a retirement that turned out to be short-lived, and is now playing in the United States’ Major League Soccer for the Los Angeles Galaxy. By Robbie’s own account, his “out” status has resulted in an outpouring of support, rather than what he had most feared throughout his career.