It seems, looking at that link, that the bigger studies, confirm smaller numbers of people being gay. The larger percentages seem to come from polls when they count any same sex experience as gay or bi. Getting a bj by a guy in college doesn't make you gay, it means you experimented sexually.
To be honest, i think explanations for why there are so few gay footballers reek of far left ideology. It all seems a bit like Bible and Spade archaeology to me. The conclusion is drawn and then the narrative is formed. The conclusion is that given we know there are, let's say for argument sake, 3% of gay people, that there should be 3% of gay footballers and thus there will have been hundreds in the professional game and the fact we are unaware of so few tells us that they are scared to come out, due to homophobia. It paints a picture of a horribly repressive society that needs dramatic restructuring. But could this just be a case of diaspora politics?
According to Slate.com around 50% of male fight attendants are gay. If one industry can have such an insane over representation of gay men, then why is it so hard to believe that other industries aren't insanely under represented? It makes no sense. As others have pointed out, where are all the Asian and East Asian footballers? Approximately 7% of the UK is is Asian. Yet in 28 years of Prem football, of over 2000 British players, only 4 Asian's have ever played. So we can see with our own eyes, how staggering the difference is. There is no way anyone can claim there are loads of closet Asian's pretending to be white or black. Anyone convinced there are a decent number of gay footballers, surely has to seriously consider a rethink based on that alone. It doesn't mean there aren't of course, but the certainty there must be, has to have significantly diminished in your minds.
Here is a link to the article of the 50 greatest Utd Prem players. Most will disagree with the list, but I think it's fair to say we'd all be shocked if a single one of these players were gay (even Ronaldo). Yet if this was representative of the population as large, you'd expect 1 or 2. No I know we can only speculate on the payers listed, but I have to say, I'd find it pretty ingenuous if most didn't think any were gay. Be honest with yourselves, do you really think any of that list or even the current squad are gay? I'm not asking if you think they could be, but if you genuinely think they are?
https://www.sportbible.com/football...-players-of-all-time-have-been-named-20200607
So, if in certain professions, gay men can be over represented by around 15 times, surely it makes sense that in other jobs, there is going to be the equivalent under representation. Given the already small percentage of people that are gay, I don't think it's at all hard to imagine there could only be 1 or 2 gay footballers in the Prem. Then when you take into account the Asian numbers, where they seem to be under represented by roughly 35 times, then suddenly the plausibility of very few gay footballers looks dramatically more realistic. If gay representation simply matches that of Asians, you'd have to expect just about 2 British gay players in 28 years of Prem football. That will probably be mind blowing to most people, but you have to ask yourself why? I'm not saying there have only been 2 gay players, but I'm just illustrating it's not massively unlikely to be that low, which is hard for most to get their heads around (much like the BLM data,) as political ideologies force feeds us oppression narratives.
If you think about it Kyle Walker really didn't want to get caught with a hooker. Neither did Rooney. In fact no player who gets caught cheating on his wife/GF, ever wants to get caught and have it in the tabloids. But it happens all the time. It's the same with actors, musicians and politicians etc, who don't want to be outed as gay. But they are always getting found out and it's then reported in the press. Gareth Thomas first had to come out as gay and then years later as HIV positive, due to others going to the press. So what is so special about gay footballers? Do they have some special talent for not being "outed?" It just makes no sense, but we are never shown to look at it from this perspective. All we ever hear is about gay footballers being scared to come out etc, to the point, that many think it's reasonably prevalent, but old hetro-normative power structures are ruining lives and we mist revolt!
