https://reflectionsasia.wordpress.c...-saux-how-gay-slurs-almost-wrecked-my-career/
I found this interesting, and I'm sorry I only came across it now. Just to put a bit of perspective on what homophobia looked like back then - and, more pertinently, to make the point that maybe we shouldn't be as forgiving of our own as we're inclined to be, because football changing rooms are not environments where being different is looked on with acceptance. Even today - we've made a lot of progress since Le Saux's days, but I don't doubt that there are still a lot of inbuilt elements to interactions on the training ground and out on the pitch come matchday that could put a gay footballer off coming out. Which may be why nobody really famous has done so yet.
Ultimately, football is an environment where a lot of stuff that wouldn't be acceptable in the workplace or the wider world is excused because, rightly or wrongly, it's a sporting environment that emerged from a predominantly working-class background, and such sporting environments (generally, with a lot of caveats) tend not to be too accepting of deviance from what's viewed as 'normal'. We've gotten a *lot* better at stamping that out, but when dealing with the difficult issue of what Aurier said...maybe, just maybe, we need to be firmer than would ordinarily be called for, just to counteract that tendency.
Again, I have to stress that today's footballers seem a different breed of players when compared to the types that Le Saux had to face back in the 80's and 90's - exceptions like Andre Gray and Nile Ranger aside, it seems like most young footballers today have their heads screwed on and are broadly products of the society of the 2000's and 2010's. I.e, far less likely to harbor the sorts of views that plagued Le Saux and drove Justin Fashanu to suicide. Nonetheless, I can get why there was discomfort with the prospect of us signing Aurier - and, personally, I do hope that his conciliatory statements and determination to rework his public image are sincere.
