A Culture of Silence

In 2005, while researching the implications of the Civil Partnerships Act, HM Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry concluded that 6% of the population of the United Kingdom should be classed as gay; one in every 16.6 people and an estimated 3.5 million people in total. As of 2012, there are over 4,000 professional footballers currently playing the game in England alone. Despite this, there are currently no openly gay professional footballers in the country. However, to suggest that this issue is exclusive to English football would be drastically wide of the mark. In actual fact, this complete lack of openly gay professional players can be observed throughout all of the top professional football leagues across the world. 'A Culture of Silence' tells the story of football's problematic relationship with homosexuality and of the homophobia that, unquestionably, still plagues the sport.