Anton Hysén, son of Swedish soccer legend and former Liverpool defender Glenn Hysén, has become the second openly gay high-level soccer player in the world.
Hysén, who plays left-sided midfield for Sweden’s Utsiktens BK club, claims that he is confident in his decision to come out despite the rampant homophobia present in traditional European soccer culture. Nor is he intimidated, he says, by the tragic suicide of Justin Fashanu, soccer’s first openly gay player who hanged himself eight years after coming out and finding himself shunned by family, friends and fans.
“His teammates and his brother turned their backs on him,” he says. “That’s the biggest tragedy.”
Fortunately, Hysén harbors no such fears from his own family or supportive young teammates. Flanked by a vocally empathetic celebrity father and peers with whom he feels completely at ease, Hysén is happy to set an example for other gay soccer players worldwide – although he finds humor in the sudden media attention inspired by his announcement.
“Everyone is positive. Everyone,” says Hysén. His coach tells him, “I support you 100%. If anybody else says anything we’ll kick them out. Just do your thing,” while his close friend and teammate Niklas Tidstrand explains, “We’re a really good, tight group – perhaps that’s why Anton came out as well…it’s good for him.”
“I supported him from the first moment he said he was gay and when he came out to everybody I thought it was good but we didn’t think it was going to be a big deal like this,” added Tidstrand.
Unfortunately, the “big deal” stems from an ingrained history of homophobic discrimination in the international soccer community – one that ultimately claimed the life of Fashanu and still threatens gay players with alienation or worse.
Utsiktens is a fairly small-time soccer club, and so far their fans only number in the hundreds. Hysén knows that things might get more difficult for him in the bigger leagues; but for now, he hopes to use his newfound pseudo-celebrity to encourage other players to come out.
“There’s nothing to be a role model for – you’re gay, it’s not a big thing. People tell me I’m a celebrity now, and I shouldn’t be. But as long as it helps [others by speaking openly], I’ll do everything I can. If there’s anyone afraid of coming out they should give me a call,” he said.
