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Former player Richarlyson declares himself bisexual: “The most important thing will not change, which is homophobia.”

Former football player Richarlyson for the first time came out as bisexual on Friday (24).

The revelation was made in an interview with the podcast “Nos Armários dos Vestiários”, on TV Globo.

The former multi-champion midfielder is the first Brazilian athlete with passage through Serie A clubs and the Brazilian National Team to declare himself non-heterosexual.

“All my life I’ve been asked if I’m gay. I’ve had a relationship with a man and I’ve had a relationship with a woman as well. But then I speak here today and soon the news will be printed: “Richarlyson is bisexual”. And the meme is ready. They will say: “Wow, but do you swear? I had no idea”. Man, I’m normal, I have wants and desires,” Richarlyson said during the interview.

“It will rain with reports, and most importantly, which is the agenda, it will not change, which is the issue of homophobia. Unfortunately, the world is not prepared to have this discussion and deal with it naturally,” she added.

The podcast recalls that, in Brazilian football, the only existing report so far of a player from the LGBTQIA+ community was a Serie D goalkeeper, Messi, who played for the potiguar club Palmeira de Goianinha.

“Because of the many people who say that my position is important, today I decided to say: I am bisexual. If that’s what was missing, ok. Ready. Now I want to see if it really gets better, because that’s my question,” Richarlyson said in the interview.

Richarlyson saw his sexuality become a topic of public debate in 2007, when the then managing director of Palmeiras, José Cyrillo Júnior, insinuated in a television program, with a prejudiced tone, that the player was gay.

The then São Paulo player filed a criminal complaint against the manager, who apologized. The complaint was filed by Judge Manoel Maximiniano Junqueira Filho, in a decision that generated revolt.

The Human Rights Commission of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp), for example, expressed rejection of the reasoning of the sentenceThe. When making the complaint, then deputy Bruno Covas, read excerpts from the sentence in which the judge claimed that “football is a virile, manly, non-homosexual game”.

THE Commission on Human Rights and Minorities of the Chamber of Deputies also approved a motion of repudiation, saying that the “judge reverses the logic of law and transforms the victim, who demanded justice and asks for compensation for the damage, in defendant”.

A footballer from 2001 to 2021, Richarlyson played for big clubs such as Fortaleza, Atlético-MG, in which he won the Libertadores in 2013, and especially São Paulo.

Wearing the jersey of the São Paulo tricolor during, the ex-midfielder won the tri of the Muricy Ramalho era: the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Brazilian Championships, in addition to the FIFA Club World Cup in 2005.

In 2008, Richarlyson was called up twice to wear the shirt of the Brazilian team under the command of coach Dunga. In February 2008, for a friendly against Ireland, and in March, a friendly against Sweden. Brazil won both matches 1-0.

“Certainly my career could have been much better in terms of media for what I built within football if I didn’t have this agenda (sexuality). This is visible, everyone knows it, but it got to a point where I was really saturated”, he said in the podcast interview released this Friday (24).

Check out photos from the LGBTQIA+ Pride Parade in São Paulo

Source: CNN Brasil

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