Soccer Team Named After Gay Striker

Once considered to be England's brightest player, it looked like the only legacy Justin Fashanu was going to have on the soccer/football world was the sad footnote of an openly gay athlete who eventually killed himself.  That was until this week when the Justin Fashanu All-Stars made their debut at a special event in Brighton, England. 

The Fashanu All-Stars were created by the Justin Campaign, an organization dedicated to ending homophobia in football as well as vindicating the memory of Justin Fashanu.

"We decided that the best thing to do was to have a campaigning football team so the football does the talking" said Jason Hall of the Justin Campaign. "Hopefully [we'll] change people's opinions of gay people on the pitch."

In the position of forward/striker, Fashanu had a fairly illustrious career and played for a number of English clubs between 1978 and 1997. In 1981 he became Britain's first £1m black footballer and in 1990 he announced he was gay, becoming the first, and so far only, out athlete in soccer/football.

He officially retired in 1997 and moved to Maryland.  Then in 1998 he was accused of sexual assault by a 17-year-old boy. Although the charges were dropped for lack of evidence, Fashanu committed suicide later that same year.  In a note he stated "I realised that I had already been presumed guilty. I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family."

Comments

[Joe Moag]

Great story. Great post. Good to see something positive rise out of the ashes of his sad life ending.

[enkidus_friend]

Thanks for good story and information. This was also covered in "442" quite sympathetically. Good to hear about the progress being made. Now if we can just get everyone to understand what real football is we'll be getting somewhere. Thanks.