Wenger: ‘Maybe no Premiership footballer will come out’

Arsene Wenger has suggested that a Premier League footballer may never come out – because of the huge media scrutiny his decision would attract.

The Arsenal manager made the comments during an in-depth interview with Arsenal Magazine about the thorny issue of homophobia in the sport.

“Because of media interest, maybe no-one will come out,” Wenger admitted.

“You have to consider now that, in a society where you have gay marriage, why should people not come out?” he continued. “For me, it is not a problem because what is important is how a player behaves, how much he loves football and how much he respects his partners. That’s what the game is about.”

Discussing former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger, who came out earlier this year after he had retired, Wenger said: “He could not come out during his career, which means we still have some progress to make in our game because he should not have had to wait until the end. But overall he should not have to come out at all because it should just be considered like anything else.”

Speaking about an ideal scenario going forward, Wenger said: “It would be good if four, five, six people come out and after that nobody speaks about it anymore because they just think it is people who live their life like they want to live it.”

Wenger’s comments follow a spate of sportsmen making the decision to come out this year, including Canadian Winter Olympian John Fennell, US student tennis star Matt Dooley and NFL player Michael Sam.

Meanwhile, a new survey carried out by Football Addicts and Stonewall has found that Irish fans are the most accepting of gay footballers.