A Premier League footballer is “very likely” to announce he is gay next year, Justin Fashanu’s niece has said, after the foundation dedicated to her uncle counselled two top flight players who are yet to come out publicly.
Amal Fashanu, whose uncle was Britain’s first and only openly gay male professional footballer, told Sky News the Justin Fashanu Foundation is offering support to the players and wants to avoid a “sensationalist story”.
Image: Amal Fashanu founded the Justin Fashanu Foundation in honour of her uncle
“It’s about figuring out their mental state… and if they are suffering, that they have a place to talk,” Ms Fashanu said of the footballers.
“The more comfortable they feel, it gives me hope they will be closer to coming out.
“I can’t promise that’s going to happen because it’s their decision.”
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Ms Fashanu, whose uncle took his own life in 1998, said the recent decision of Josh Cavallo to reveal his sexuality had shown gay footballers in the UK it is now “a safer place” to come out.
Cavallo, a 21-year-old footballer who plays in Australia’s A League, came out publicly in October, making him the world’s only current openly gay male top-flight professional footballer.
Ms Fashanu said Cavallo had shown footballers coming out “might not be the drama they think it will be”.
“They won’t lose their sponsorship deals, they won’t get rejected by their teammates, the fans won’t abuse them every time they get on the pitch or touch a ball,” she said.
“For Josh coming out, this is what I think it’s helped, essentially.”
She now believes it is “very likely” a gay Premier League footballer will come out in 2022, as players have better awareness of the importance of mental health and are “talking about things more openly”.
Ms Fashanu said: “With mental health, it’s impressive that footballers are finally coming forward and saying: ‘This is what I have, this is who I am and I want to change it’. That’s a big step.
“The fact we’re stepping forward makes me think in 2022, there will be a footballer who is ready.”
But Ms Fashanu warned that hosting next year’s World Cup in Qatar – where it is illegal to be gay – is “definitely not a positive thing” in the effort to make it easier for players to come out.
She said it was even more troubling as the last World Cup in 2018 was held in Russia which has faced criticism for its treatment of LGBT+ people.
“It’s concerning and it’s stressful because we don’t know what will happen in Qatar,” Ms Fashanu said.
“It feels like they’re not being considerate towards the fact there might be gay players who feel such a level of anxiety they can’t even perform properly.”
Ms Fashanu said there should be “serious conversations” about a country’s record on LGBT+ rights before it is chosen to host a World Cup in the future.
Image: The next World Cup is being in Qatar in December 2022. Pic: AP
“I’m not sure this was taken into consideration for Russia or for Qatar,” she added.
One football supporters’ group has called for England to boycott future World Cups if they are held in countries where it is illegal to be gay after next year’s tournament in Qatar.
Gareth Southgate’s team are aiming to qualify for the event from November 2022 despite concerns about Qatar’s human rights record, including their ban on same-sex relationships.
Homosexual behaviour is illegal in Qatar and could result in a prison sentence.
Qatar also runs Sharia courts where the punishment for Muslim men engaging in same-sex activity could be the death penalty. However, there have been no recorded cases of this happening.
Calling for a potential future boycott, Paul Amann, the founder of Liverpool’s LGBT+ fans group Kop Outs, told Sky News he would be “disgusted” if FIFA announced another World Cup had been awarded to country where being gay is outlawed.
He said: “If another country was awarded (the World Cup) that had an appalling human rights record, we would be campaigning against that.”
An FA spokesman told Sky News it “stands firmly against all forms of discrimination and prejudice and believes that our game is to be enjoyed and participated in by all”.
“We believe football is everybody’s game, and we will continue to do our utmost to use our influence to drive meaningful change so that our game is for all,” he added.
Heathrow Airport bosses had been warned of a potential substation failures less than a week before a major power outage closed the airport for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.
The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring took out lights on a runway.
A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for around 200,000 passengers.
“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, Mr Wicking said.
“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.
“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”
Mr Wicking also said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, and that “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.
However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.
There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Image: Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
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“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.