Britain’s first openly gay football referee: The story of ryan atkin

Abstract

Following the coming out of different sportsmen playing professional sport, this chapter focuses on the sport media’s reaction to the decision made by British football referee, Ryan Atkin, to come out as gay on 10 August 2017. Eleven sport media articles as well as the comments sections of two online media articles were analyzed to address two important research questions: (1) do traditional notions of heteromasculinity retain prominence in a culture of homophobia in British football? and (2) is the coverage of the coming out of Ryan Atkin by the sports media further evidence of a cultural shift in football that is reflective of decreasing homophobia? The findings were that the case study of Ryan Atkin is further reflective of various forms of masculinity and sexuality retaining equal cultural value among a number of key stakeholders – in this case the sports media. The chapter concludes by arguing that as an influential part of sports culture, the sports media are an important stakeholder in helping stigmatize and challenge homophobia through the articles that they publish.