It’s more welcoming, but the women’s game is still not perfect for its gay players – The Times

Amid the drama of these opening days of the women’s Euros, it has been easy to lose sight of one element of its appeal: the fact that there are so many gay role models in women’s football.

In the most recent women’s World Cup, in 2019, there were 38 players out of 552 who had come out publicly, and the total number of gay players was widely assumed to be higher, but many had simply not come out to that degree of visibility. Compare that to the men’s game where you could count the number of openly gay male players in the whole of the male professional football world on one hand.

When Jake Daniels, the Blackpool player, came out in May, he was the