Joey Barton blames football managers for closet gay players

Joey Barton has blamed football bosses for preventing any professional players coming out in the open about being homosexuals.

The QPR midfielder made the revelation in a TV documentary as to why gay footballers like to keep quiet about their sexuality.

“Certain managers will discriminate,” the Sun quoted Barton as saying.

“These archaic figures think if they had a gay footballer there would be all kinds of shenanigans in the dressing room.

Publicist Max Clifford said that he has known half a dozen players too scared to come out.

“When they have come to me to protect their identity, they have made it very clear that their career would be finished if they were known to be gay,” he added.

Not one pro footballer out of 5,000 in Britain is openly homosexual.

The BBC3 film, about sexuality in sport is presented by the niece of gay striker Justin Fashanu, who hanged himself in 1998.