History was made today, as active, professional footballer Jake Daniels, 17, came out as gay in a movie interview with Sky Sports News.
The Blackpool forward told the team that he was ready to "be myself", bigging up his teammates who he said had offered him "amazing support" after he had told them about his sexuality.
Having scored 30 goals for the under-19s this season, Daniels signed a professional contract with Blackpool in February 2022 and is clearly somebody the squad wants to keep on side for the foreseeable future.
"Since I've come out to my family, my club and my teammates", he explains, "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."
Daniels would go on to say that he knew he was gay at around five or six, believing that his sexuality did not mix with his beloved sport.
He continued: "I've had girlfriends in the past to try and make all my mates think I'm straight, and it was just a massive cover-up. So it has been a struggle." Now though, he is "confident and happy to be myself, finally."
After telling his mother, sister and teammates, Daniels told the rest of his family and "was quite scared" because of how "the older generation might react." Fortunately, he said: "I needn't have worried. I've had so many messages saying, 'we are proud and we are supportive'. It's been amazing. I couldn't have wished for it to go better."
As the first British male professional footballer to come out as gay since Justin Fashanu in 1990, Daniels has, by just speaking out about his sexuality, done an incredible job for the LGBTQ+ community not just in sport, but in general.
His bravery should be rewarded and celebrated and I for one cannot wait to see where his career goes next. The world of male professional football has for too long been a place where men are ashamed to be anything but straight. Roberts has smashed a hammer through those expectations.
We know how horrible a small minority of 'fans' can be at matches, shouting racial slurs or mocking players with bigoted gestures; then of course there's social media, where keyboard warriors feel braver than ever behind a keyboard. Anybody who has an issue with him because of his sexuality has no place being at a game in the modern day.
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