{"id":1477038,"date":"2022-05-16T16:14:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T20:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477038"},"modified":"2022-05-16T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T20:14:42","slug":"professional-u-k-footballer-says-hes-been-hiding-the-real-me-becomes-leagues-first-active-player-to-come-out-as-gay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/professional-u-k-footballer-says-hes-been-hiding-the-real-me-becomes-leagues-first-active-player-to-come-out-as-gay\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional U.K. Footballer Says He\u2019s \u2018Been Hiding The Real Me,\u2019 Becomes League\u2019s First Active Player To \u2018Come Out\u2019 As Gay"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">40<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fprofessional-u-k-footballer-says-hes-been-hiding-the-real-me-becomes-leagues-first-active-player-to-come-out-as-gay%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1477038&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/05\/Blackpool-2.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Professional United Kingdom footballer Jake Daniels has become the first active player in the league to \u201ccome out\u201d as gay and admitted he\u2019s been \u201chiding the real me\u201d for his whole life.<\/p>\n<p>The Blackpool Football Club\u2019s forward posted a lengthy message on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackpoolfc.co.uk\/news\/2022\/may\/16\/a-message-from-jake-daniels\/\">team\u2019s website<\/a> revealing that he\u2019s known his \u201cwhole life\u201d that he\u2019s gay and said he\u2019s finally ready to \u201ccome out and be myself\u201d as he shares that he\u2019s \u201cbeen thinking for a long time about how I want to do it,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/12614531\/jake-daniels-blackpool-forward-becomes-uks-first-active-male-professional-footballer-to-come-out-publicly-as-gay\">reported<\/a> SkySports.com.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis season has been a fantastic one for me on the pitch,\u201d Daniels wrote. \u201cI\u2019ve made my first-team debut, scored 30 goals for the youth team, signed my first professional contract and shared success with my team-mates, going on a great run in the FA Youth Cup and lifting the Lancashire FA Pro-Youth Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut off the pitch I\u2019ve been hiding the real me and who I really am,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019ve known my whole life that I\u2019m gay, and I now feel that I\u2019m ready to come out and be myself. It\u2019s a step into the unknown being one of the first footballers in this country to reveal my sexuality, but I\u2019ve been inspired by Josh Cavallo, Matt Morton and athletes from other sports, like Tom Daley, to have the courage and determination to drive change.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A message from Jake Daniels. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/R2wEsniXKV\">https:\/\/t.co\/R2wEsniXKV<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dcznYKtSaD\">pic.twitter.com\/dcznYKtSaD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Blackpool FC (@BlackpoolFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlackpoolFC\/status\/1526232455002345473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 16, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIn reaching this point, I\u2019ve had some of the best support and advice from my family, my Club, my agent and Stonewall, who have all been incredibly pro-active in putting my interests and welfare first,\u201d Daniels continued. \u201cI have also confided in my team-mates in the youth team here at Blackpool, and they too have embraced the news and supported my decision to open up and tell people.\u00a0I\u2019ve hated lying my whole life and feeling the need to change to fit in. I want to be a role model myself by doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The professional soccer player closed out his post by sharing how he knows there are \u201cpeople out there in the same space\u201d like him and may not yet feel \u201ccomfortable revealing their sexuality.\u201d He said he just wanted them to know that they \u201cdon\u2019t have to change\u201d who they are to fit in, and to be you and be happy is what \u201cmatters most.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The outlet noted that Jake is the first professional footballer in the country to come out as gay in the last 30 years. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-norfolk-54617759\">Justin Fashanu<\/a> shared his sexuality in 1990, later on in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professional United Kingdom footballer Jake Daniels has become the first active player in the league to \u201ccome out\u201d as gay and admitted he\u2019s been \u201chiding the real me\u201d for his<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":1483319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/219"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1477038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1483319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1477038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1477038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1477038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}