The first professional English footballer to come out as gay for more than 30 years has slammed the decision to play the World Cup in Qatar.
Blackpool striker Jake Daniels made the courageous move to come out in May, the first professional English player to do so since Justin Fashanu. Daniels is just 17, but if he had been called up to the England squad for this winter's World Cup, he has admitted he would not feel comfortable playing.
The tournament is to be played in Qatar, which is one most dangerous places in the world to be a member of the LGBT+ community. Homosexuality is outlawed in the Middle Eastern country, with LGBT+ Qataris revealing they have been arrested and beaten by security forces.
And Daniels has now slammed the Qatari government for forcing the LGBT+ community to hide who they are. He also admitted that he would not feel comfortable travelling to the country if he had been called up.
“No, in my opinion, I wouldn’t. It would frustrate me, because why am I trying to hide my personal life for other people? Like, I’m going to play football for you and you can’t respect how I want to be, so it’s just not what I want to do," Daniels told British Vogue.
“I’m not the happiest. I know [some] people wanted to boycott it, which would have been good, but the World Cup’s massive. If you’re comfortable to go and do it, you do it.”
Daniels has become a role model for the LGBT+ community since he made the brave move to come out. But he is keen to show people that he is much more than just the 'gay footballer'.
“I’ve been inspirational. but that’s not the label I should have. That’s just my life. I want to push the community to get where it should be, especially in football and all sport," he added. "When I did get my Instagram back and I saw some of the messages, it was people’s mums saying, ‘You’ve made my son come out.’ That’s an impact I wanted to have. Me and my mum definitely spoke about it.
"She was like, ‘People are now going to see if Jake Daniels is a good footballer and he’s not come out for a publicity stunt,’ because obviously it’s not what I’ve done. I know that people are going to be watching me, but it’s all going to be watching me for the right reasons.”
Daniels' concern about Qatar's record on LGBT+ rights echoes that of fellow trailblazer Josh Cavallo. The latter became the world's only top-flight footballer to come out in October last year and has previously admitted to being "scared" at the prospect of playing in Qatar.
“I read something along the lines of that [they] give the death penalty for gay people in Qatar, so it’s something I’m very scared [of] and wouldn’t really want to go to Qatar for that,” Cavallo said.
“And that saddens me. At the end of the day the World Cup is in Qatar and one of the greatest achievements as a professional footballer is to play for your country, and to know that this is in a country that doesn’t support gay people and puts us at risk of our own life, that does scare me and makes me re-evaluate – is my life more important than doing something really good in my career?”
See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue available via digital download and on newsstands
