Fremantle soccer operations boss Bob Murphy has launched an impassioned pledge to any homosexual gamers who’re contemplating revealing their sexual choice, promising they are going to be “fought for and supported”.
The AFL is the only Australian skilled sporting competitors that doesn’t function an brazenly gay participant, previous or current.
The concern was thrust into the highlight on Monday evening by an ABC Four Corners documentary, which featured former Western Bulldogs champion Murphy providing robust phrases of encouragement for homosexual gamers and assuring the extent of help from golf equipment and teammates could be “a superpower”.
“You will be fought for and supported,” Murphy stated.
“If there was a dissenting voice, they would told to shut the f… up, or get out.
“I would think that for a player to stand in front of his teammates and say, ‘I’m gay and I’m one of you and I want you to accept me’… that would be a superpower for your football team and club.
“I want a gay footballer in my football club so we can wrap our arms around him and say, ‘You’re one of us. We love you. You’re brave. You’re braver than anyone in this league, so that makes us braver than anyone else’.
One of the most widely-respected figures in the sport, Murphy joined the Dockers in 2021 after finishing his 312-game AFL career at the Bulldogs in 2017.
That tenure included a stint alongside outspoken Brownlow medallist Jason Akermanis, who penned a controversial newspaper column in 2010 with the headline ‘Stay in the closet’. Akermanis wrote that the AFL world was “not ready” for a participant to disclose themselves as gay, and stated the publicity from an announcement may “break the fabric of a club”.
Akermanis, who performed simply two extra video games in his AFL profession after the column was revealed, informed the documentary he stood by his feedback and that the primary brazenly homosexual participant would carry a “heavy burden”.
“I got branded everything… homophobic, you name it,” he stated. “Just because I write about it and you don’t agree with it doesn’t mean … I’m scared of gay people, which is just complete crap.”
Murphy stated studying Akermanis’ phrases had deeply harm him.
“I was disgusted, I was embarrassed and I was hurt,” Murphy stated.
“I did want to get on the record with the author and say – I think what I said to him was ‘That abhorrent s— that you wrote in the paper’.
“For me, in that time of my life, I was like ‘We’re done’.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
