Reaction to Iker Casillas - Carles Puyol coming out tweets
By 90min Staff
Iker Casillas and Carles Puyol have come under-fire for now deleted tweets announcing that they are gay.
The World Cup winners exchanged tweets early on Sunday, with Casillas stating 'I hope you respect me, I'm gay', and former teammate Puyol replying to said tweet saying 'It's time to tell our story, Iker'.
After a number of hours, Casillas deleted the aforementioned tweet, claiming that his account was hacked in a follow up tweet: "Hacked account. Luckily everything in order. Apologies to all my followers. And of course, more apologies to the LGBT community."
The claim that the single tweet came from someone who had hacked his account however, especially given the fact that the hacker used the opportunity to post just once, was quite hard to believe for many.
And understandably so.
Good of those hackers to give Casillas his account back immediately after sending one tweet
— Nick Miller (@NickMiller79) October 9, 2022
Casillas might be the first person to ever be hacked where the hacker only used the opportunity to tweet once
— Katja🏳️🌈 (@applessquabble) October 9, 2022
And even despite the apology and the claim that he was hacked being genuine or not, the damage had already been done in many ways.
One look at the replies to Casillas' original tweet revealed just how much the ex-goalkeeper's 'joke' had emboldened droves of homophobic football fans across social media.
Iker Casillas & Carles Puyol should be ashamed. Making a joke about coming out is not only pathetic & sickening but it fuels homophobia. It achieves exactly the opposite of what we want football to be: a safe, inclusive & respectful space. Lost all respect for both players.
— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) October 9, 2022
Iker Casillas managed to alienate millions of homophobes, millions of LGBT people, millions of people who think that coming out shouldn’t be “banter,” and probably discouraged a lot of pro footballers from coming out as well.
— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) October 9, 2022
41 years old.
Iker Casillas was running to be RFEF President at one point, wasn't he? Imagine thinking you should be in a influential position in football when you don't understand why it's harmful to make coming out jokes, so clear to see why there's still issues with discrimination in sport
— Nancy Gillen (@Nancy_Gillen) October 9, 2022
It is clear that Casillas and Puyol's actions set back progress that has been made regarding inclusivity in the game, with people rightfully pointing out that the two ex-players have made it more difficult for current footballers to come out as gay.
Iker Casillas and Carlos Puyol joking about being gay really isn’t funny, no idea what they are thinking. Casillas is 41 years of age, now male footballers who actually are gay and feeling like coming out will be even more put off with it seeing the amount of hatred under it.
— Josh Bunting (@Buntingfootball) October 9, 2022
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Casillas and Puyol came from Josh Cavallo, the Adelaide United defender who came out as gay in October 2021. Carvallo labelled the tweets as 'beyond disrespectful', stating: "Iker Casillas and Carles Puyol joking and making fun out of coming out in football is disappointing," he tweeted. "It's a difficult journey that any LGBTQ+ people have to go through. To see my role models and legends of the game make fun out of coming out and my community is beyond disrespectful."
@IkerCasillas and @Carles5puyol joking and making fun out of coming out in football is disappointing. It’s a difficult journey that any LGBTQ+ ppl have to go through. To see my role models and legends of the game make fun out of coming out and my community is beyond disrespectful pic.twitter.com/Yp88aQyyTV
— Josh Cavallo (@JoshuaCavallo) October 9, 2022