Impact of Blackpool's Jake Daniels coming out will be huge, says niece of Justin Fashanu

Seventeen-year-old Blackpool forward Daniels came out publicly on Monday, becoming the first openly gay male footballer in Britain to do so while still playing since Fashanu in 1990.

Fashanu’s niece Amal, the founder of the Justin Fashanu Foundation and who made a 2012 BBC Three documentary called Britain’s Gay Footballers, says she knows a number of current top-flight players who are gay but reluctant to come out, all for their own reasons.

“For one player it might be about showing weakness, one might be that his family are religious, one might be the fact that his agent or his manager or his club aren’t pro gay,” Fashanu told the PA news agency.

“The impact of (Daniels) coming out will be huge. Even though he’s young, this is starting the road map. Now it’s a case of waiting to see how everyone reacts. When he’s playing, will everyone boo him? What’s going to happen?

“Putting myself in their shoes, and the fact that I do know gay footballers in the Premier League, let’s put it this way – if I was them I would definitely wait.

“It’s very important to continue to allow these players to actually see the goodness and the positive news that’s coming from this and for them to be at home and think to themselves ‘OK, I might actually be a higher-profile player (than Daniels) but look at the way he’s been welcomed and the way the fans and the people have reacted. Maybe it’s actually worth it, because it’s better to be out and suffering five per cent than 100 per cent’.”

Justin Fashanu felt his career was blighted by the fact he was gay, and he took his own life at the age of 37.

His niece believes the world Daniels has come out into is a very different one, but said: “He’s courageous because the atmosphere and the environment of football is not conditioned for a gay player.

“There’s this whole machine that’s behind football that not a lot of people know about and not a lot of people can actually access.

“Someone being supposedly accepted, and then all of a sudden not being accepted, you know, because a lot of it is front, it’s a facade.

“We can all say ‘There’s no problem in football, why are we even talking about it?’ But the next minute in those boardrooms, they have different discussions and we can’t hear them, but I’m aware of that.

“Sometimes I just think football is a dark world, and (Daniels coming out) is just showing a bit of light.”

Daniels made his first-team debut for the Seasiders earlier this month, coming off the bench during the final day defeat to Peterborough United.

The forward, who scored 30 goals for the Under-19 side this season, signed professional terms with the club in February.

Born in Bispham, Daniels has risen through the youth ranks at Bloomfield Road and is expected to have a bright future in the game.