Only 63 Percent of U.S. Soccer Fans Comfortable with Gay and Bisexual Players

Soccer fans in the States are trailing behind the U.K. and other European countries when accepting LGBTQ diversity in the sport.

Stonewall and Forza released survey results Thursday showing the opinions of 50,000 fans worldwide about whether they would be comfortable with a player coming out gay or bisexual.

63 percent of American fans said they would be comfortable, against 80 percent of U.K. fans. That put U.S. soccer fans 16th overall in terms of LGBTQ acceptance.

The news that American fans are dragging their feet on accepting queer athletes comes not long after the retirement of openly gay soccer player Robbie Rogers in November. After Rogers's retirement, OutSports declared there were zero openly gay male athletes in the five largest North American professional sports leagues.