{"id":1533,"date":"2019-09-07T23:04:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T23:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2019-09-07T23:04:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T23:04:18","slug":"albin-ekdal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/?p=1533","title":{"rendered":"Albin Ekdal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Straight Footballer Blasts Homophobia In Soccer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Dawn Ennis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweden\u2019s\nAlbin Ekdal is straight and says it\u2019s time to change soccer so closeted gay\nplayers feel comfortable coming out. Albin Ekdal might not be a household name\noutside Europe, but the midfielder for Sweden\u2019s national team and Italy\u2019s\nSampdoria has a message he wants soccer players all around the world to hear:\nmen\u2019s soccer can learn a lot from women\u2019s soccer when it comes to acceptance of\ngay athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a\nlot to learn from them in this aspect,\u201d Ekdal told Sport Bladet in an interview\nrecorded in Italy and picked up by UK Yahoo Sports and Goal.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is\nobviously a greater acceptance. Women are probably smarter and more civilized\nin a group than men can be. But we should absolutely learn from how they\u2019ve\ndone it, because you obviously wish that it would be as accepted among men as\namong women to show your love. It doesn\u2019t define who you are, just who you\u2019re\nin love with. It should affect the football extremely little but sadly those\nproblems are still here in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the\ninterview, the captain recorded a 90-second video that is now posted online. It\nfeatures Ekdal sitting in front of the rainbow flag. speaking in Swedish \u2014 with\nEnglish subtitles \u2014 but his message is universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo\nhomosexual men play football, they say. How did we let it come to this? My name\nis Albin Ekdal and I have played football in two of the biggest leagues in the\nworld. I have participated in both the European Championships and the World Cup\nbut I have still never stood on the same pitch as an openly homosexual player.\nThe issue can\u2019t be shown more clearly than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElite\nfootball pushes away homosexuals, or puts pressure on boys to be quiet as\nsomething as natural as who they love. We must support the boy who is right now\nthinking about quitting not to get mocked, who might have heard the word\n\u2018faggot\u2019 be used as an abuse in the locker room,  because it\u2019s not the individual boy\u2019s responsibility to dare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is mine,\nyours and everyone else\u2019s task to make sure that you don\u2019t need to be brave to\ncome out. It should be simple and fun to tell people that you\u2019re in love. I\ncan\u2019t do more than welcoming everyone into the world of football. Neither can\nyou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut if we\ndo it together, in every stand, on every bus trip, on each away game and in\nevery changing room, then soon we won\u2019t have this problem anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following\nthe recording of the video, Sportbladet asked Ekdal \u2014 who just turned 30 \u2014 a\nfew questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there any difference between a homosexual\nand a heterosexual player?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\nObviously not. One hardly knows how to respond to such a question. It\u2019s just\nabout who you like and who you\u2019re in love with. Technical skills, finishes,\nspeed or game intelligence has nothing to do with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt should\nbe obvious that also gay people shall be open with who they are in football.\nHowever, there are hardly any gay people, so we have a problem. And therefore I\nthink it\u2019s about time we change that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you perceive the attitude towards gay\npeople in Italy?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust like\nin Sweden and in the rest of the world, there are some people who are a little\nbit homophobic. That\u2019s how it is everywhere. It feels so obvious that everyone\nshould be able to love whoever they want, but unfortunately that isn\u2019t always\nthe case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost people\nbehaved as they should but the homophobia was still there. Insults such as\n\u2018faggot\u2019 and other things existed. I\u2019m sure they still exist among boys in\nchanging rooms and classrooms. If I would\u2019ve been gay and heard all of that it\nwould\u2019ve made it much harder to come out. I bet it has stuck around today, so\neven though you don\u2019t mean to hurt anyone it\u2019s important to think about what\nyou say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otherwise?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end\nof the day it can lead to many good players quitting. Hopefully, there aren\u2019t\ntoo many stopping to play because of this, because everyone should obviously be\nable to play football regardless of who they love. But every person forced to\nquit is a double loss: primarily for the individual but also for football at\nlarge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you remember when you fell in love as a\nteenager?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I am\nin love with the same girl that I fell in love with back then. We have been\ntogether since I was 17 so I remember it well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did falling in love make you a better player?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, you\nobviously get a different harmony when you\u2019re in love. A safety. So it probably\ncontributes to you becoming a better player, since love gives energy and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you say about boys who are in love\nwith boys not being able to get that boost as a player if they have to keep\neverything happening off the pitch inside of themselves?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat I wish\nthat they could get to tell. It is everyone\u2019s right to be able to be in love\nwith whoever they want. That\u2019s nothing one should feel a need to hide or feel\nashamed of, it should be fun. I really hope that it will get better when it\ncomes to this. It would be great for society if gay men could play football\nwithout having to take any shit for it. It would be cool to see it too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are your feelings about how few openly\ngay soccer players there are in the world? Some say there are only eight.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s\nextremely few. Either there are many, many more who don\u2019t want to come out, or\nthey\u2019ve already quit. Both options are equally bad. I hope that there can be a\ndomino effect that one dares, someone comes after and that in a couple of years\nit\u2019s completely normal. That\u2019s my hope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A special thanks to Dawn Ennis & Outsports\nfor this article<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Straight Footballer Blasts Homophobia In Soccer By Dawn Ennis Sweden\u2019s Albin Ekdal is straight and says it\u2019s time to change soccer so closeted gay players feel comfortable coming out. Albin Ekdal might not be a household name outside Europe, but the midfielder for Sweden\u2019s national team and Italy\u2019s Sampdoria has a message he wants soccer players all around the world to hear: men\u2019s soccer can learn a lot from women\u2019s soccer when it comes to acceptance of gay athletes. \u201cWe have a lot to learn from them in this aspect,\u201d Ekdal told Sport Bladet in an interview recorded in Italy and picked up by UK Yahoo Sports and Goal.com \u201cThere is obviously a greater acceptance. Women are probably smarter and more civilized in a group than men can be. But we should absolutely learn from how they\u2019ve done it, because you obviously wish that it would be as accepted among men as among women to show your love. It doesn\u2019t define who you are, just who you\u2019re in love with. It should affect the football extremely little but sadly those problems are still here in 2019.\u201d Prior to the interview, the captain recorded a 90-second video that is now posted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[2170,2172,2171],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1535,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions\/1535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thestandardps.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}