Héctor Bellerín reflects on homophobia in football and warns of the lack of "safe spaces" in 'Cara al show' on La Sexta

Héctor Bellerín addressed this Tuesday on Marc Giró's program Cara al show the debate about homosexuality in football and the difficulty for players to live their orientation openly within the professional environment.

To the direct question posed in the interview, the footballer stated: “It's a question I get asked a lot and I haven't met anyone. What happens is that once I spoke with an anthropologist and he told me that players who do not consider themselves heterosexual go through the categories and every year they leave because these are not safe spaces.”

He also delved into his relationship with his former teammate Borja Iglesias, highlighting the personal and professional bond they both built at Real Betis: “We completely fell in love. At Betis we were inseparable and, to this day, we still keep in touch. We have been of great help to each other”. 

The footballer insisted that behaviors such as racist, sexist, or homophobic chants are still present in stadiums, which in his opinion do not always receive a sufficient response, something he attributes to greater social tolerance within football. In that vein, he added that these dynamics can help explain both the absence of visible role models in the elite and the existing pressure in the locker rooms, and expanded the reflection by pointing out the normalization of this type of attitudes in a context that, according to him, reflects broader social tensions. 

During the chat with Marc Giró, the footballer also reflected on stereotypes in sports and how players are judged for aspects unrelated to performance, such as their way of dressing, their political preferences, or their personal tastes, defending that they “have zero effect” on sports performance. In addition, he defended that footballers have a social responsibility due to the great public repercussion of their opinions and recognized that his activism has had consequences in his media career. “They have never told me anything, but it is true that they have kept me away from places,” he confessed, assuring that on some occasions he has stopped being invited to certain events due to the possibility that his interventions could be uncomfortable for some organizers.

Finally, his intervention was reflected in a general reflection on the role of sport in society: “Football has always been a reflection of society,” emphasizing that social tension also transfers to stadiums and to the way competition is experienced.