Players can come out as gay in Football Manager 2018

Players can come out as gay to their managers in the latest release from the Football Manager franchise.

Football Manager 2018 will see the addition of a great new feature which the developers hope will result in some more real-life instances of players coming out. There are currently no openly gay players in the Premier League given the ongoing and completely ridiculous stigma that exists. Stereotypes of homosexual men somehow being less masculine than their heterosexual counterparts are rife and one listen to the abuse hurled at players from the terraces of grounds up and down Britain makes it quite understandable why gay professionals find it so difficult to come out while still playing. "Part of the reason we decided to do this is because there are gay footballers," Miles Jacobson, the game's director, told BBC Sport. [caption id="attachment_147335" align="aligncenter" width="624"] Picture via BBC[/caption] "We know from the amount of professionals that there has to be players who are gay but feel they don't want to come out. "I find it weird that it's still a problem in football so we decided to try and show people that coming out isn't a big deal and can be a positive thing. "I just think it's crazy that in 2017 we are in a world where people can't be themselves." The way it works is that fictional players, who appear once depictions of real players retire in the video game, come out and managers find out via a news item which arrives in their inbox. [caption id="attachment_147336" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Picture via BBC[/caption] After that alert, the club's revenue will receive a slight boost which, according to the fictional commercial director, stems from fresh interest from the LGBTQ community.