Chelsea message Jake Daniels as Blackpool star becomes first gay UK pro footballer in decades

Chelsea have shown their support to Blackpool youngster Jake Daniels, who has become the first professional footballer since Justin Fashanu in 1990 to come out as gay.

LGBTQ+ representation in the men's game has been non-existent since Fashanu came out. Since then, the likes of Thomas Hitzlsperger, Robbie Rogers, Collin Martin and Australian footballing pair Josh Cavallo and Andy Brennan have come out in different circumstances. Yet, there still wasn't a player currently in the UK in the professional game to have taken that brave step.

However, this brave 17-year-old has stepped forward and has done something which hopefully signifies a positive change in fan culture when it comes to acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community which has been ostracised for many decades now within English football. "Now is the right time to do it," Daniels said on Monday via The Athletic. "I feel like I am ready to tell people my story. I want people to know the real me.

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"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." Multiple clubs in the footballing sphere and some big names in the game have already shown their support to Daniels with Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville both praising his courage on Sky Sports to make this big step which has allowed him to now not live a 'lie' anymore.

He added: "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