A place in the final of the Australia Cup — the major national knockout competition in men’s soccer Down Under — is the dream prize on offer for Andy Brennan and his South Melbourne teammates this weekend.
South are the only club outside the A-League to make it to the semis this season, and it’s seven years since they last got this far. They also have home advantage on Sunday, against Macarthur FC of Sydney.
Brennan is in his third spell at the club, and it’s evident from recent photos on social media just how much he’s enjoying himself. Playing regularly, he’s been scoring goals and setting them up in a campaign that saw South finish top of their league and win the Victoria state cup competition.
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Considering that he was almost lost to football in 2019, when he was grappling so much with being gay and closeted that he thought about quitting the game, he has a success story all to himself.
“I got to a point where I couldn’t handle living the way I was and moving forward in the sport,” he says. Within a blog post that went out on the players’ union website, he wrote the words “I’m gay” and set himself free. “I just felt like I had to get it out.”
He was the first male soccer player to come out in Australia and at the time, Collin Martin in MLS was the only other active professional on the men’s side of the sport who was out as gay, anywhere in the world.
Since then, just four more in the pro or semi-pro game — Josh Cavallo, Jake Daniels, Zander Murray and Jakub Jankto — have shared similar personal news while actively playing.
That’s a tiny fraction of nearly 130,000 professional male footballers in the global game. “Those numbers are just staggering,” says Brennan, speaking on the Football v Homophobia Podcast.
But how much of this issue is in the mind, and how much is in the culture? Trying to make sense of it all is one of the reasons why Brennan is pursuing a doctorate in psychology.
He began his studies in this field around the time he came out. “It was through my experiences in football and feeling as though I didn’t quite belong that made me want to do psychology. It’s such an important space to make an individual feel like they’re included.”
In his 2019 blog post, Brennan described the closet as “a mental burden of not knowing how those around you will react… It was a perceived pressure that consumed me.”
Five years on, he appears at ease, and his performances on the pitch back that up. He hasn’t contributed this many combined goals and assists for his team in years.
He attributes that to a psychological shift. “I was constantly second-guessing myself. When someone had a go at me but in a constructive way to improve my football, I used to take it so personally.
“But now, it doesn’t penetrate me in that way and when I reflect on it, it becomes more pronounced, how that feeling inhibits performance — even if it’s just playing for fun. You can enjoy your sport so much more.”
‘Bring a boyfriend? I would!’
Soccer isn’t provided with testimonies from gay players very often. When these stories are shared, there is always worldwide interest, a degree of analysis, and sometimes engagement from governing bodies and federations.
The game quickly moves on again, but for the player, it’s just the beginning. Brennan says the first few years presented him with lots of “new perspectives” that he hadn’t contemplated before.
He hadn’t intended to do any advocacy work but he found it fulfilling. He rarely hears homophobic comments these days and wonders whether that’s because he’s in earshot or if locker room culture has truly changed. And there are still the unknowns, such as on relationships and being more public about your love life.
NPL Victoria, the league that South Melbourne plays in, recently held its annual awards night. Brennan feels it would have been fine to take a boyfriend along. “I’m not dating anyone at the moment, so if anyone is listening out there…” he laughs.
“I would do it, but I still feel I’d have some discomfort. Those thoughts would pop into my head — are people judging me here? And that’s something that will be with me for a little while.
“Five years feels like a long time, but there are lots of situations that you’re going to be confronted with.”
Cavallo, his fellow Aussie, is now engaged to his partner, Leighton Morrell. In the U.S., Collin Martin and his boyfriend, Zach Ware, have been public about their relationship. That gives Brennan encouragement.
“I hope Josh and Collin would feel as comfortable,” Brennan said. “I don’t know if their red carpet events are bigger than mine, but they might get a bit more attention than in South Melbourne.”
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Incidents of homophobic language have been punished several times this season in the AFL, the country’s most-watched league. The frequency of these on-field slurs is naturally disappointing for Brennan although he says it at least demonstrates “what the landscape is actually like and gives a point of reference to address it.”
That was not the case with another recent incident involving an Australian sportsman’s anti-gay language, however. Nashville SC’s Patrick Yazbek was suspended for two games under an MLS policy that conceals the nature of discriminatory offenses from the media and fans.
Outsports learned that the former Sydney FC midfielder had used the homophobic f-word on the pitch, but when contacted for a response, the MLS and the players’ association both declined to comment.
“If the aim is to stamp out this sort of language, you have to be in a position to utilize incidents of it in order to send a message,” says Brennan.
“If people are just getting banned and there’s no communication on why that ban’s come about, I just don’t see how that’s going to help other people understand why it’s bad.”
Kicking away the shame
More psychological studies into the cause of anti-LGBTQ discrimination in sports would help federations to tackle the problem.
Brennan believes federations should invest more in education from the top down but insists a culture shift must come from the other direction too, particularly in grassroots clubs. “Let’s get that changed so that players coming through aren’t speaking this way,” he adds.
He thinks of his younger self, listening to slurs used by coaches as well as teammates and how that slowly chipped away at his self-esteem. It wasn’t until he reached his mid-20s that he felt ready to own his truth.
Clearly, most gay players in pro soccer never do. As he runs out on Sunday for arguably the biggest game of his career to date, Brennan deserves to be applauded again for his courage.
He thinks of those who are still in the closet. “The older you get, having that feeling that you’re living a lie and wasting time by not being able to live who you are — it’s a real shame that’s still happening.”
Whether by playing or through psychology, he’s showing that the path less followed leads to a happier place. Possibly, a cup final too.
