English football legend Gary Lineker has thrown his support behind a campaign looking to raise funds to erect a statue commemorating the first openly gay professional footballer.
The LGBT+ fan group of Championship side Norwich City, Proud Canaries, are hoping to raise £150,000 for the statue of Justin Fashanu. The striker came out as gay in 1990, becoming the first professional footballer to do while he was still playing.
Fashanu would sadly go on to take his own life eight years later and it took until May of this year for the next active professional English footballer to come out in Jake Daniels. The former Norwich player came out during a time when the LGBT+ community was facing an intense level of discrimination.
