{"id":412498,"date":"2023-02-13T10:49:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T15:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/ca\/?post_type=news&#038;p=412498"},"modified":"2023-02-13T10:51:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T15:51:11","slug":"czech-republic-international-midfielder-jankto-comes-out-as-gay","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/czech-republic-international-midfielder-jankto-comes-out-as-gay\/","title":{"rendered":"Czech Republic international midfielder Jankto comes out as gay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"qa-introduction gel-pica-bold\" role=\"introduction\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-1\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-1.0\">Czech Republic midfielder Jakub Jankto became the first current international in men&#8217;s soccer to publicly come out as gay.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"zxx\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PZNSAteOch\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/PZNSAteOch<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jakub Jankto (@jakubjanktojr) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jakubjanktojr\/status\/1625117590182928384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 13, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<div data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-2\">\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-2.0\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-2.0.0\">The 27-year-old Sparta Prague Jankto, playing on loan from Spanish side Getafe, <\/span>made his senior debut for the Czech Republic in 2017 and has scored four goals in 45 appearances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-4\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-4.0\">&#8220;Like everybody else, I have my strengths, I have my weaknesses, I have a family, I have my friends,&#8221; Jankto, who also played for Italian clubs Udinese and Sampdoria, said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-4\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-4.0\">&#8220;<\/span><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-5.0\">I have a job that I have been doing as best as I can for years with seriousness, with professionalism and passion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-6\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-6.0\">&#8220;Like everybody else, I also want to live my life in freedom without fears, without prejudice, without violence but with love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-7\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-7.0\">&#8220;I am homosexual and I no longer want to hide myself.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-8\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-8.2\">Last year, Blackpool&#8217;s Jake Daniels became the first professional player in the UK men&#8217;s game for more than 30 years to come out while still playing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-9\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-9.0\">Before Daniels publicly came out, Justin Fashanu was the last active men&#8217;s professional soccer player in the UK to come out during his playing career, featuring for clubs in England and Scotland after announcing in October 1990 that he was gay.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-9\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-10.0\">Australia&#8217;s Adelaide United player Josh Cavallo was the only current openly gay top-flight male professional player in the world, announcing it last October.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-11\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-11.0\">Sparta Prague said in a statement Jankto had openly discussed his sexual orientation with the club&#8217;s management, coach and team-mates &#8220;some time ago&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-12\"><span data-reactid=\".634to3660o.0.0.0.1.$paragraph-12.0\">&#8220;Everything else concerns his personal life,&#8221; the club said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Czech Republic midfielder Jakub Jankto became the first current international in men&#8217;s soccer to publicly come out as gay. pic.twitter.com\/PZNSAteOch &mdash; Jakub Jankto [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4224,"featured_media":412499,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[17477,17475],"news_category":[14236,136,14235,138,137],"gn_keywords":[],"acf":{"announce":"\"I am homosexual and I no longer want to hide myself.\" he said","video":[]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/412498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/412498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412498"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=412498"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=412498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}