English football's most prominent gay manager on challenge of changing attitudes

Luke Tuffs, the most prominent gay manager in England's football pyramid, has suggested more needs to be done to change the approach of those at the top of the game for making gay players and managers welcome.

There are only a handful of gay players in the men's game, with Australian youth international Josh Cavallo among the most prominent after he came out in 2021, and the same goes for managers.

Tuffs is in charge of Leatherhead, who play in the Isthmian League - the seventh tier of English football - and he believes attitudes are changing among his own generation.

However, given the makeup of those in positions of power at the top of the game, the 35-year-old has suggested there is still work to be done.

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"The people at the top are older males, predominantly white males, 50-plus years old," Tuffs said in an interview with The Guardian.

"However much education there is, they will still harbour the views they do, even if they don't see it.

"It's how they lived over the past 30-40 years; you're not going to change that with a couple of workshops."

There was some optimism from Tuffs when speaking about attitudes of current players under his charge, though.

"In years gone by I think I might have struggled to get the information I wanted over to people because they probably wouldn't have accepted me," he said

"They would have thought: 'Why is a gay person telling me what to do on a football pitch?' I genuinely think that would have been a thing 20, even 10 years ago. Now, certainly not."

While Adelaide United defender Cavallo is the only known gay footballer in a top-flight men's league, a number of other current and former players have come out as gay in recent years.

When former Germany international Thomas Hitzlsperger came out in 2014, he said it would have been impossible for him to do so during his playing career "not because of the fans or the other players, but because of the media".

Cavallo, meanwhile, has revealed he became aware of homophobic abuse while playing, but insisted "hate will never win".

"I'm not going to pretend that I didn't see or hear the homophobic abuse at the game last night. There are no words to tell you how disappointed I was," the 22-year-old wrote after playing for Adelaide United against Melbourne Victory.

"As a society it shows we still face these problems in 2022. This shouldn't be acceptable and we need to do more to hold these people accountable.

"Hate never will win. I will never apologise for living my truth and most recently who I am outside of football."