Brighton and Hove Albion chief executive Paul Barber has told the Daily Mail that he believes football must tackle its homophobia problem.
The city of Brighton is famous for having a large LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community and while that is a point of proud for them, it has led to a lot of abuse from away fans. Many of the travelling supporters who make the trip to the AMEX Stadium end up chanting homophobic songs in an attempt to get under the skin of Brighton’s fans and players.
And for Barber, he believes that this is a problem that needs to be tackled by the sport in the same way it has tackled racism over the last few years. He does believe that a lot of good work has been done in the last few years but that even more needs to be done if they are to eradicate homophobic abuse from the stands.
He said: “I see (homophobia) as a social problem and we haven’t solved that yet.”
“These things often get laid at football’s door because of its profile and contained audience, but it’s a wider problem.”
“That said, I think football could use its power in a similar way to the ‘Kick it Out’ (anti-racism) campaign. By focusing on that issue, the game has made a huge impact.”
“We have only had a couple of incidents this season with visiting fans at the Amex, and we have been able to identify them and eject them. But it’s harder when it’s 1,000 or 1,500 fans chanting something – you can’t eject them all.”
“But we’ve always had great co-operation from other EFL clubs when there have been problems and our fans are great at dealing with it, too. When they hear chants of “Does your boyfriend know you’re here?”, they come back with “You’re too ugly to be gay’ and it usually stops it at source.'”
