Il had initially received a lot of support. Australian midfielder Josh Cavallo, who revealed his homosexuality at the end of October, said at the time to be “overwhelmed” by the wave of support received worldwide after his coming out which made him the only openly gay footballer playing in a championship. first division. The 22-year-old Adelaide United player in the Australian Championship (A-League) posted a video on social media in which he said: “I’m a footballer and I’m gay. “
His decision to make his sexual orientation public had even been applauded in the football world, in particular by Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Antoine Griezmann, Marcus Rashford, Raphaël Varane, Gerard Piqué and David de Gea. Cavallo even caught the attention of famous American talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, who tweeted to her 77 million followers, “I’m sending her a lot of love today. “
“I will never apologize for living my truth”
But there is still a long way to go. As reported by our colleagues from Slate, Josh Cavallo was the victim of homophobic insults on January 8 during Adelaide’s match against Melbourne Victory, when he came into play at half-time. On social networks, he courageously returns to the incident. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see or hear the homophobic slurs during the game last night,” he wrote. There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was. As a society, it shows that we still face these issues in 2022. It shouldn’t be okay and we need to do more to hold these people accountable. Hate will never win. I will never apologize for living my truth and more recently for saying who I am outside of football. “
Deploring the inaction of Instagram, a platform on which he also suffered a wave of homophobic harassment after the match, Josh Cavallo sends a message full of optimism to young people who would, like him, be victims of this kind of attack . The Australian Football League vows it will sanction those involved, while Melbourne Victory, which hosted the match, say insulting spectators would be banned from the stadium.
