Jakub Jankto and the hardest match: beating the taboos of football

Maybe we are. Real life leads taboo 1-0but there is still a long way to go to bring home the victory. Jakub Jankto, Czech midfielder of Cagliari, will be the first homosexual footballer to play in Serie A. Let’s be clear: the first to have come out, to have publicly declared his homosexuality. Without fanfare, with the spontaneity that belongs to him. “I hope my gesture can help someone,” he said, confirming his reluctance to media exposure.

Jankto’s is an epochal turning point that makes the season that will soon begin (the Italian Cup has already started, the first day of the championship is August 19) a watershed moment between a before and an after.

Beyond the veil of hypocrisy that permeates a macho and phony context like that of football, the gesture of the footballer – or the declaration of his sexual orientation – has given another pickaxe to the castle of secrets, omissions and falsehoods that form the basis – when one enters the sexual sphere – of which every football locker room is cemented. In a world of football – Italian and foreign – prisoner of macho culture, the matter has always been removed and postponed to a later date. Reticence and omission prevailed. And even the first reactions were certainly not marked by a new and shared path. Sport Minister Andrea Abodi underlined: «I don’t like ostentation. I don’t make differences of characteristics that concern the sphere of personal choices». He then adjusted the shot, but it is confirmation that homosexuality is still a complicated problem to handle for Italian sport.

Jankto, 27 years old, a passion for painting cultivated since childhood, and a natural inclination to learn the languages (he is fluent in English, Italian and Spanish, also fluent in Russian), he is an old acquaintance of our league. You have already attended Serie A for six seasons, from 2014 to 2021, wearing the shirts of Sampdoria (where Claudio Ranieri was training him, whom he met again today in Cagliari), Udinese and Ascoli. He was married at the time, living with his wife Marketa and son, David. The coming out – one of the very few in the world of professional football – arrived in February. It was his life partner who supported him from the beginning: «I am proud of his courage, many of his colleagues do not speak and remain in the shadows out of fear. I am convinced that Jakub is a great man, and finally feels free to express his identity of him ».

Jankto, who his companions nicknamed Sampi, is also a lucky entrepreneur. He has been investing his earnings in the eSports sector for years so much so that he was included by Forbes in the Top 30 of the best Under 30 entrepreneurs on the planet. Cagliari coach Ranieri, an example of seriousness and credibility in a world often inhabited by acrobats, has released a definitive statement, which has the merit of closing the matter. «Jankto is a professional and I will evaluate him for that, nothing else interests me. I don’t have to protect him, he’s a good player and that’s all that matters to me ».