Josh Cavallo, an Australian professional footballer who revealed his homosexuality in October 2021, was the victim of homophobic slurs coming from the stands during his team Adelaide United’s game against Melbourne Victory this weekend. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see or hear the homophobic abuse during last night’s game,” he wrote on Sunday in an Instagram post spotted by The team.
“There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was. As a society, this shows that we are still facing these problems in 2022, ”he added.
Club and league support
The 22-year-old midfielder calls for “empowering these people.” Hate will never win. I will never apologize for revealing my truth and more recently who I am outside of football. “The Australian concludes his message with a call for tolerance:” Football is a game for everyone, no matter who you are, what color your skin is or where you come from (…). Thanks to all the positive messages, love and support, seeing that negativity far outweighs. “
His club Adelaide United said in a press release “Work with Australian professional leagues and Melbourne Victory to identify perpetrators and prosecute them accordingly”. For his part,
the Melbourne club announced that the spectators responsible for insults in his stadium “will be banned from the next matches”.