This week Jason Akermanis an AFL footballer with the Western Bulldogs wrote an op-ed piece for Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper. The op-ed piece said that Aker had played with homosexual men in AFL teams up in Brisbane, and all things measured, he thought it would be best for any AFL gay player to stay in the closet while playing AFL than coming out.

Akermanis’ reasons were - like the man - simple enough. it would be a media frenzy and nothing the AFL player ever did again would be viewed in the media through any other lens than being the first AFL openly gay player lens.

The world imploded. Akermanis said homosexuals weren’t his cup of tea, and this apparently is a great sin as is suggesting repressing your sexuality at the footy club. Akermanis’ own uncomfortable feelings with having a gay in the ranks was honest - and yes ignorant. What I recognised immediately in Akermanis’ words was the reaction I experienced when I came out at my own Rugby club in February of 2006.

Several years later, Gareth Thomas the former formidable captain of the Welsh Rugby Union side formally came out. The first professional international rugby player – still playing to announce he was a homosexual. Before Thomas had come out he had confided in his national coach who also encouraged him to tell three of his fellow team members. They - to a degree - kept Thomas’ secret. When Gareth Thomas formally announced coming out of the closet, it was confirmation of the worst kept secret in Welsh – if not world professional rugby.

In 2006, I also trusted four of my mates with my confidence. Fearing my coming out would end my playing days of a sport that I was, and still am passionate about. Secrecy was assured, and yet when I confirmed that yes, I was a homosexual –  I wanted the world to swallow me whole. At the very moment I sighed a huge sigh of regret and deep down inside started denying the reality that my rugby days were over.

I answered the question “Are you gay?” a little after 10 pm and within four hours I had players from my club sending me congratulatory SMS messages. A.C Grayling remarked that “Betrayal by a friend is worse than betrayal by your country’. How true. Luckily the first SMS of support was one of my mentors and the second by a man who knew I was gay, but didn’t dare ask the question, imposing, I suppose, his own version of ‘Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell’.

I have to admit my own fears about the reaction to my sexuality were in the majority unfounded. Most of the club I played with had two reactions the first – the lie ‘We knew all along’ and the second the truth ‘We couldn’t give a f-ck’. However, a small group largely belonging to the leadership group of players, and the older members of the club could not cope with having a homo in their ranks. The reaction among my friends was varied. Some had never befriended a gay person before they’d met me (and probably wouldn’t have befriended me if I was out at the start). Some were angry that I didn’t trust them, that I had betrayed their friendship, that I had kept this secret from them. Others kept saying things like “I just needed to know” so that they could protect themselves from me now that I had become a predator just waiting to jump them in the showers. Now that they knew that yes, I was a homosexual they could keep themselves ‘safe’.

People who really just wanted to come to a rugby club and - surprise - play rugby were having to choose sides. Some friends would support me in private but at the club, and elsewhere after a few pints, did not only not support me they contributed to the vilification which was safely explained away with an ‘only joking’ excuse. When, in frustration, I turned the ‘only joking’ routine around to demonstrate that it wasn’t a ‘joke’ by picking on their ethnicity or religion there was a sharp intake of breath and an accusation of malicious intent. “Exactly” I would say infuriating them even more having demonstrated the double standard.

So come to 2010, some 4 years, 3 months and 4 days after I answered ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Am I gay?’ and here is Jason Akermanis telling it like it is. If you want to keep playing footy and playing footy well, stay in the closet. The rent a crowd with the mindset “all minorities are the same” automatically crucified Akermanis. I supported him and was accused of being homophobic. I read in many of the comments sections of the op-ed pieces on Akermanis’ op-ed piece, that other gay players in the closet are anonymously backing what Akermanis has said. What Akermanis said in his simple football cliché way is: ‘This is the way it is. Not the way it should be’. No more than that.

The absurdity of this week came to a conclusion when a man who has no understanding of AFL culture, no understanding of Melbourne, no understanding of the Australian heterosexual male twittered away his condemnation from his home in Cardiff. Gareth Thomas may be the first openly gay rugby union player. But he, like Ian (Roberts) and Daniel (Kawolski) before him waited until the end of his career before opening the door to the closet and stepping out.

No professional gay male in a team sport should have to stay in the closet, but if they want to keep playing the sport they love and earn an income from that, and not on the talk show circuit, then my advice for the time being is to adopt the ‘Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell’ policy - majorly flawed as that policy is. In the meantime all the players and sporting organisations and peak sporting bodies can send all the press releases and media conferences out into the void saying they support homosexuals in their club, their sport and their universe. All with the subtext of ‘Please don’t let it be us who has to deal with it first’. The players, the clubs, the sporting codes don’t have to stand by the words, and lucky for them, least of all thanks to the Akermanis backlash they don’t have to act upon them either.

Gay men in team sports will know when it’s time to come out of the closet, and that will be when some sports jock writes an op-ed piece like Akermanis’ and the reaction is nothing more than a shake of the head. The over reaction to Akermanis is proof enough that if you are gay and want to play male team sport you have two options – join a ghetto club that is openly gay – or stay in the closet. Professional sportsmen don’t have those options, us amateurs who love the game we play do.