Yungblud has hit out at the “deeply entrenched issue with homophobia in football” after two Spanish footballers joked about being gay.
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Yesterday (October 9) retired Spain and Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas took to Twitter to say “I hope you respect me: I’m gay” while his former teammate Carles Puyol soon replied saying “it’s time to tell our story, Iker” alongside a heart emoji.
A few hours later, both tweets were deleted with Casillas claiming his account had been hacked. “Apologies to all my followers. And of course, more apologies to the LGBT community.”
Cuenta hackeada. Por suerte todo en orden. Disculpas a todos mis followers. Y por supuesto, más disculpas a la comunidad LGTB.
— Iker Casillas (@IkerCasillas) October 9, 2022
Puyol meanwhile admitted he had “made a mistake. Sorry for a clumsy joke with no bad intentions and totally out of place. I understand that it may have hurt sensitivities. All my respect and support for the LGTBIQA+ community”.
Following the Tweets, Yungblud has hit out at both players. Taking to Twitter he wrote: “It takes an immense amount of courage to come out whatever your profession. However there’s a deeply entrenched issue with homophobia in football and to have two icons of the game treat it like a schoolyard joke is just disappointing,” he said before adding “do better”.
it takes an immense amount of courage to come out whatever your profession. however there’s a deeply entrenched issue with homophobia in football and to have two icons of the game treat it like a schoolyard joke is just disappointing. do better.
— YUNGBLUD (@yungblud) October 9, 2022
Casillas and Puyol have also been heavily criticised by other footballers
@IkerCasillas and @Carles5puyol joking and making fun out of coming out in football is disappointing. It’s a difficult journey that any LGBTQ+ ppl have to go through. To see my role models and legends of the game make fun out of coming out and my community is beyond disrespectful pic.twitter.com/Yp88aQyyTV
— Josh Cavallo (@JoshuaCavallo) October 9, 2022
Iker Casillas and Carles Puyol's tweets were pathetic and all they've achieved is to embolden the homophobic attitudes that are already rife within football and within football fandom. Slow progress is being made, things like this simply make it even slower.
— Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) October 9, 2022
Meanwhile, Yungblud has also announced details of his upcoming short film Mars, based on the ‘Weird!’ track of the same name.
“This all came from the idea that we could facilitate bringing characters to life by assembling a team of cast and crew that fully represent the communities who’s stories we wanted to tell,” said Yungblud.
“Giving people a platform to tell their stories with truth and integrity means so much to me and I feel that’s what we’ve achieved with this film,” he continued.
The film, which stars Heartstopper‘s Yasmin Finney as lead character Charlie Acaster, is set in the north of England and is described as a “frank and funny short film of teenage self-discovery”.
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