"I hope they respect me: I'm gay," Iker Casillas wrote on Twitter this Sunday. "It's time to tell about us, Iker", replied Carles Puyol. Hacked account, as the Real Madrid exporter said, or joke in bad taste, as the former Barça captain later admitted, in his case? In any case, both received a barrage of criticism and, among them, that of Josh Cavallo, a player for Adelaide United, from the Australian first division, who just under a year ago took a step forward and became the first High-level active footballer who publicly communicated his homosexuality.
"Casillas and Puyol joking and making fun of coming out of the closet in the world of football is disappointing," Cavallo lamented on Twitter, in a message in which he underlines the "difficult path" that the LGTBQ community must go through.
The exceptionality of Cavallo declaring his homosexuality alone accounts for the taboo that it still entails in professional sports, in general, and in football, in particular, where the few previous models fall into lower categories or once the player in question He has already retired, as is the case of the German Thomas Hitzlperger, who announced it a year after hanging up his boots. Years later he would end up receiving the Federal Cross of Merit from Germany in recognition of his contributions to tolerance.
"Seeing my role models and sports legends make fun of coming out of the closet and my community is more than a lack of respect," Cavallo ditches.
In any case, the young Australian player was not the only one to censor the words of Casillas and Puyol, a fact that became viral on Twitter.
So much so that hours later the former goalkeeper apologized and assured that he had suffered a computer attack. For his part, the former culé defender assumed his mistake: "I was wrong. Sorry for a clumsy joke without any bad intentions and absolutely out of place. I understand that it may have hurt sensitivities. All my respect and support for the LGTBIQA community, "he wrote .
Although Casillas maintains that he was hacked, many speculated that his message would have been a response to the multiple reports from the pink press that bring the exporter together with several women such as Alejandra Onieva, Melyssa Pinto, María José Camacho and even Shakira.
