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Western Bulldogs defender Bob Murphy wants people to lose their “sick fascination” with which AFL footballers might be gay.
While no AFL player has yet come out, the 29-year-old said if any footballer did choose to reveal they were homosexual, he doubted it would create any awkwardness within the league.
But Murphy said in his view, members of the public were unhealthily keen to find out how many AFL players were gay and who they were.
“I think there’s a bit of a sick fascination I hear from people on the street about who it is and how many there is,” Murphy told reporters on Wednesday.
“I think that’s really irrelevant.
“It’s about an environment of accepting not just people who are gay, but from all walks of life and different outlooks on things.
“The culture of footy now is one that’s very accepting. This club’s one of great acceptance.”
Asked why he regarded such curiosity as sick, Murphy said: “There’s an undertone of something that I don’t really like too much.”
His comments came after NRL grand final referee Matt Cecchin revealed in a newspaper article on Sunday that he is gay.
That prompted ex-Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett to say he believed about five per cent of AFL players were gay, but chose not to reveal that fact because of fear about how teammates would treat them.
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the league were doing what they could to create a culture in which sexual preference was not a subject of discrimination.
That included having amended their anti-vilification rules to cover sexuality.
But he said Kennett might still be right to say that gay footballers remained scared to let team-mates know.
“That very well may be the case,” Demetriou said.
“It’s a personal choice, it’s not just an issue that’s relevant within the AFL.”
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said people had the right to live how they wished.
“I’d be encouraging people to be themselves,” Buckley said.
“I’ve heard Jeff Kennett’s comments and obviously it’s quite a public issue with the NRL ref who came out.
“That’s fantastic … you’d like to think that in society, we embrace all different types of people who have all different types of choices and everyone can live their life however they wish.
“As long as it’s not affecting anyone else.”
© AAP 2012Recommend this story.
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The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments
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- AFL, Bob Murphy, Matt Cecchin, Western Bulldogs
February 16th 2012 @ 7:36am
Swampy said | February 16th 2012 @ 7:36am | Report comment
Unfortunately Bob Murphy is probably not representative of the maturity level of the majority of footballers across all codes.
There is little doubt in my mind that many team mates would feel unnecessarily uncomfortable around an outed gay footballer.
It will be a while before a gay man is accepted for who he is – a good footballer – and I’m sure anyone that is gay is likely to know that and continue to remain silent on their sexuality.
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February 17th 2012 @ 9:15am
stabpass said | February 17th 2012 @ 9:15am | Report comment
Bob Murphy is a really interesting guy, I could be wrong, but i thought i read that his parents were both a catholic priest and a catholic nun, who separately left their respective orders to either marry, or met afterwards, and they may have had him later in life.
I would imagine that his upbringing has given him a really different take on things than most kids, some of his columns in the newspaper have been really interesting on football, and how it relates to the community.
But i agree with Swampy, he is not really representative of the everage footballer.
February 17th 2012 @ 1:23am
Nick Jungfer said | February 17th 2012 @ 1:23am | Report comment
THANK YOU Bob Murphy. Need more of the common sense towards gay footballers and gay people in general. Footy is stuck in about 1960 as far as attitude to homosexuality is concerned, so its refreshing to read a footballer talking sense like this rather than doing an Aker or just sitting on the fence to play it safe.
February 17th 2012 @ 10:30am
Ian Whitchurch said | February 17th 2012 @ 10:30am | Report comment
Ian Roberts is enough proof to me that gay players can be really, really good.
February 17th 2012 @ 10:38am
Johnno said | February 17th 2012 @ 10:38am | Report comment
Well maybe if the AFL players got rid of the tight shorts, and wore loose fitting larger shorts they would not invite such innuendos, and jokes.
February 17th 2012 @ 10:26pm
Dingo said | February 17th 2012 @ 10:26pm | Report comment
Relevance to the article?
Johnno, if people were more accepting of others regardless of race, colour, religion, sex or sexuality these sorts of topics would not need to be discussed.
Unfortunately there are too many bigotted, homophobic, narrow minded xenophobes within our community for that to ever happen.
Don’t be one of them.
February 17th 2012 @ 11:09pm
Ian Whitchurch said | February 17th 2012 @ 11:09pm | Report comment
By the way, and for the record, among the several passengers on Flight 93 that charged the cockpit on 9/11 was Mark Bingham, a member of the San Francisco Fog, a mainly gay mens rugby union team.
This was, in my view, one of the proudest moments for the rugby community. I can probably dig up the eulogy a bloke who played a couple of times for the Wallabies wrote for Mr Bingham, but now I will just say that there is no finer death for a man than to give his life for his friends.