BREAKING: Blackpool star Jake Daniels bravely comes out as gay in historic statement

Blackpool striker Jake Daniels, 17, has become the first active British male professional footballer to come out as gay.

The teenage forward is the first male footballer to come out publicly since Justin Fashanu, and he says he hopes that his decision to go public about his sexuality will encourage others from within the game who are hesistent to do the same.

"Now is the right time to do it. I feel like I am ready to tell people my story. I want people to know the real me," Daniels told Sky Sports News.

"I have been thinking for a long time about how I want to do it, when I want to do it. I know now is the time. I am ready to be myself, be free and be confident with it all.

"I can't really put a date on it, but I was probably five or six years old when I knew I was gay. So it's been a long time that I have been living with the lie.

"At that age you don't really think that football and being gay doesn't mix. You just think, one day, when I'm older I'll get a girlfriend and I will change and it will be fine.

"But as you get older you realise you can't just change. It doesn't work like that."