Jake Daniels, remember the name. Yes, the 17-year-old is a promising young footballer for the championship side Blackpool (that’s the league beneath the top tier Premier League, for those who don’t avidly follow footie), plying his trade as a nifty forward for The Tangerines.
But the rising star has just played an absolute blinder: by coming out as gay, the first male footballer to do so since Nottingham Forest’s Justin Fashanu in 1990, he has broken one of the sport's most pernicious silences. So, is this the moment that football is dragged into the modern world, kicking and screaming (they do make such a fuss over those tackles)? Let's hope so.
Why is Jake Daniels in the news?
Speaking to Sky Sports, the 17-year-old said: ‘Now is the right time to do it. I feel like I am ready to tell people my story.’
He added: ‘Since I’ve come out to my family, my club and my team-mates, that period of overthinking everything - and the stress it created - has gone. It was impacting my mental health. Now I am just confident and happy to be myself finally.’
‘I have been thinking for a long time about how I want to do it, when I want to do it. I know now is the time. I am ready to be myself, be free and be confident with it all' after 'such a long time of lying'.
Why is it a big deal for a footballer to talk about his sexuality?
You can count the number of top male footballers who have come out as gay on one hand. Despite the charity Stonewall’s superb rainbow laces campaign and other LGBTQ+ allyship campaigns in top leagues, homophobia is sadly still rife on the terraces — and on pitches across the planet.
The Australian footballer Josh Cavallo, who plays for Adelaide United in the A-league Down Under, came out as gay in January. He has hailed Daniels’s ‘bravery’ (Daniels, in turn, has said that he was inspired by Cavallo’s story).
Fashanu, who was paid £1m by The Sun newspaper for his exclusive in 1990, was a trailblazer who became the country’s most expensive black player when he moved from Norwich City to Nottingham Forest.
But he was pilloried by the press and fans after he came out, and his own coach castigated him for attending gay clubs. Nearly a decade later, Fashanu took his own life, writing in his suicide note that being gay and a football personality ‘is so hard’.
Four years ago, The Sun reported on two Premier League footballers who were being bullied by team-mates who suspected that they were in a relationship.
Only two weeks ago, the former Manchester United footballer Patrice Evra told The Mid Point podcast, 'You can't be a gay footballer player, people will go mad.'
What has the reaction to Jake Daniels' coming out been?
Daniels has drawn praise from across the sporting world.
Tottenham striker and England captain Kane said, on Twitter: ‘Massive credit to you [Jake Daniels] and the way your friends, family, club, and captain have supported you. Football should be welcoming for everyone.’
‘I think he will be massively accepted,’ Match of the Day host Gary Lineker told BBC Sport.
‘Not just in his own dressing room but players he plays against. I think, overall, dressing rooms wouldn’t think about it. They will consider if you’re a good footballer or not. That’s all that matters.’
‘I’m so pleased as I think he is going down a path many others will follow and I think the game will be better for it. Once they see that the overwhelming majority of people will be accepting, others will follow suit.’
He added that football should have ‘passed this watershed moment a long time ago’.
This Morning presenter Philip Schofield spoke of his 'hope' after the 17-year-old became the first male professional footballer in England to come out in 32 years.
Schofield, who famously came out on This Morning back in 2020, praised Jake for being ‘incredibly brave’ as the stars gave their thoughts on the story.
He said: ‘What’s important now, and this may be very naive, I think he will have an amazing amount of support, help and care within his own football community. That his football mates, his football club, all enormously supportive.
‘You see the tweets from other football players saying, “what you’ve done is incredible”.
‘What you’ve gotta hope now… football is such a family, it’s tribal, it’s a family. What you want now is for that tribal family now to show an enormous amount of support.