BEST FOOT FORWARD
On 27 October, Australian footballer Josh Cavallo made a life-changing and, he hopes, game-changing revelation. In a clip posted on Twitter, the Adelaide United defender explained that he is gay. The video has now been viewed more than 11 million times on Twitter alone, while his Instagram following has spiked from 10,000 before his “coming out” to almost 150,000 by the latter part of November. In a flash, he has become the world’s only openly gay footballer competing at the highest level of football. As a result, his voice has, overnight, claimed authority and relevance. He is now invited to opine on the polemic debates of our times, whether they be a World Cup in the deeply homophobic environs of Qatar or the ongoing culture war inflicted upon transgender people in the West.
Reflecting on that momentous day, Cavallo remembers his phone glitching due to the sheer volume of supportive messages coming in. He is starry-eyed as he rattles through the names of the showbiz well-wishers who congratulated him. The social media missives arrived from all corners of the globe, from Los Angeles to Liverpool, from talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres to football manager Jürgen Klopp. On the sporting side, Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford and the former American World No. 1 tennis player Billie Jean King led the way, while in the LGBTQ+ community, headline acts such as Ricky Martin, Sam Smith and RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni Courtney Act, were also quick to embrace Cavallo’s news.
In this interview, as he leads the 101 Sport category, Cavallo wants to use his new-found platform to bring about change: “I want to represent the LGBTQ community, to be a role model and an icon for future generations. I want to be a voice heard loud and
