Leading Welsh Rugby Star Forced To Apologise For Homophobic Comment On Twitter

Homophobia in sport has long been a problem in the UK and across the world, and Welsh international rugby player Jonathan Thomas hasn’t acted to make it’s reputation much better after being caught on Twitter making a homophobic comment in relation to a top gay Welsh referee Nigel Owens.

Capped 51 times for his country, and set to play against Scotland on Saturday, Thomas in an open exchange with one of his team-mates, Ian Evans, at the Welsh rugby club Ospreys wrote in response to Evans who said:

“Legs and ass are in bits, can’t move”

that:

“U gotta stop hanging round with Nigel Owens”

Quickly recognising it hadn’t been perhaps the best thing to have written both Evans and Thomas acted to apologise with Evans saying:

“For those ppl who got the wrong end of the stick… it was from our savage training day yesterday, sorry about friend fellow ppl”

whilst Thomas went further making a statement saying:

“Nigel is a great friend of mine and there is absolutely no way I would say anything to him or about him publicly – or indeed privately – which I thought he would find personally offensive. There is no malicious intent in this message whatsoever. This was some childish banter between friends and I did not think for a moment that there may be other people out there reading it and/or taking it in the wrong way.

“I made a very silly comment to something else that was written, but nevertheless, I would like to apologise to anyone who is or was offended by it. I have spoken to Nigel this afternoon and, as I knew at the time of writing, he is not offended and he remains a very good friend. I have now removed the offending comment and will be much more conscious of distinguishing between private jokes and what can be said in a public forum in future.”

Nigel Owens, who wrote in his autobiography, Half Time, of how he had become suicidal in his earlier life whilst trying to come to terms with his sexuality has also tried to calm the situation by telling the Irish Independent that:

“It’s probably just tongue-in-cheek, something they said without thinking about it,” he said. “If it had been other players that I didn’t know so well then maybe I might think, ‘Hang on a minute’, but with those two there’s definitely no issues.”

Whilst this particular incident appears to be one that is more to do with a sportsman not taking the time to think through his actions, as opposed to wanting to be outwardly homophobic, it does show, at a time where homophobia in sport is under intense scrutiny that there is still a real need to educate those in high level sports  that making such jokes in public is not acceptable due to it’s ability to reinforce negative stereotypes that the LGBT community has fought so fiercely to remove.