Sparta Prague midfielder has released the following video
Shame in 2023 players still feel the need to hide who they really are for so long, lets just hope he gets the full support of his club, the fans and the Czech FA now he has come out so openly
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I really hope so
The women's game is full of players who are openly gay so the men should follow suit
Fair play to him
Brave move and much respect to him.
I'm glad he's been able to make this announcement, but I genuinely don't believe there are massive numbers of gay footballers "in the closet", as otherwise why not come out when you are retired, if you fear the reaction?
Maybe @PragueAddick could tell us how this announcement has gone down over there and if Jakub will get the support from his club he should get
People call Sam Smith brave for what it wore at the weekend but I have another word for that....and it begins with a c
much work still to be done.
Shouldn't be a tough decision in this day and age but it is, with all the stick he'll get from the minority of idiots out there.
Overall he's better off here than in any other CEE country. Czechs have always been socially liberal, even if the law still hasn't caught up. It's long considered itself to be a largely agnostic nation and the Church a minor reactionary irritant. Their cousins in Slovakia are very different in that regard. Sparta have already issued a strongly supportive tweet, and the overall response has been overwhelmingly positive on there. It will be different on FB and among the terrace "ultras" of opposing teams but that's football fans for you.
Never appears to be an problem in the WSL where at some clubs there are more Gay players than straight. They are just female footballers with different sexual orientation.
In the wonderful world of showbusiness it's mixed between gay and straight performers and it's accepted as it should be. The Professional Panto my daughter was in during December had 6 out of the Seven male performers were gay. All the girls in the Panto were straight. The one straight guy was popular.
Doc, Happy, sneezy, Grumpy ! no it wasn't Snow White but Sleeping beauty, and even the Prince was gay.
Clown ?
Dressing up in musical performances is the norm for some performers:
Elton John and Lady gaga have gone for it in the past.
What ever floats your boat, I personally prefer to listen to music and go to art galleries for visuals.
Now back to JJ...
The authorities might still have a way to go on certain issues, but I think Football clubs, players, and fans absolutely are ready for more openly gay players. There's a handful about now and I haven't heard of much fuss about them other than when they first came out, so I hope that will be encouragement and this will start to snowball. I'm pretty sure there are probably more that are "out" to their teammates but haven't gone public about it. Hopefully within 5 to 10 years it'll be total non-issue because there are so many of openly gay players in the men's game that no one notices anymore.
In the last 7 years I have had 3 female lesbians facility managers a gay project engineer. We have a guy who comes in one day in a dress, next day in a suit, but looks like a man when in a dress.
Recently 2 male engineers who are on hormones and changed Christian names, and no one bat's an eyelid.
My grand children accept difference in people so why the secrecy.
I am sure we all have gay, lesbian and trans friends as I do.
I know of one England cricketer who is gay. The lengths that he has to go through (including false stories about having been seen out with a "girlfriend" or "being close" to a female at a public event) is, frankly, ridiculous. But, sadly, he has to because there are certain countries and where he still wants to be able to ply his trade where it is not accepted or allowed to be gay. Should he risk his livelihood by coming out? There is a reason why Steven Davies is the only England player to do so - he only represented England here and in Australia and has never played franchise cricket, as far as I am aware, abroad. Why did many more not follow?
Among the ICC's Full Members, homosexuality is outlawed in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe - though some of them criminalise only male homosexuality. Trinidad and Tobago is the only major West Indian country that permits female as well as male same-sex relations. Same-sex marriage is not recognised in India.
So, being gay is, marginally, more accepted for females in some of those countries but, even those close to individuals in that position aren't as willing to do so as we would think they should be. Take England's Katherine Brunt for example:
"My mum wouldn't accept it," Brunt remembers. "She told me I had a choice and she prayed a lot. She believes in God so much, and I guess I did too for quite a long time. When you believe like that, you believe in the sayings of what will happen to you and she was quite scared for me. I think she blamed it on herself, things to do with her parenting." As a result, Brunt says she has had to lose out on a lot of her relationship with her mother. "And she has lost out on a lot of following my life because she doesn't accept who I am, so it has been pretty crap for me since then."
Until we get to walk in the shoes of that person, we really do not know what it is like to be gay and a professional in sport. It really isn't that easy, sometimes, to come out.