Abodi on Jankto: “Coming out? I don’t like ostentation, but I respect individual choices” – Football

”To be honest, I don’t like ostentation in general, but individual choices must be respected for how they are taken and for what they are”. The Minister for Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodithus comments the return to Italy of Jakub Jankto, the 27-year-old Czech close to signing with Cagliari. The midfielder, who boasts a past with the jerseys of Ascoli, Udinese and Sampdoria, had come out last February, declaring his homosexuality.

Abodi: ”I don’t agree with some expressions of Pride”

”Society, in general, can probably still take a few steps forward. As far as I’m concerned, he’s first and foremost a person and second, he’s an athlete. I don’t make differences in characteristics that concern the sphere of personal choices”, added the former president of the Lega Serie B aa ’24 Mattino’ on Radio 24. Statements that immediately created controversy, so much so that a clarification has arrived on Twitter: ”To be correct, I replied by saying: for me there are people – specifies Abodi -. I spoke of respect for choices and, I add with conviction and fairness, for human nature. Respect is an unequivocal value, to be guaranteed. Then, can I not share some expressions of Pride?”.

In February the coming-out

Jankto had been discovered by the Udinese executives, who had him in Italy from Slavia Prague. After the excellent 2015/16 championship on loan to Ascoli, he played two very good seasons with the Friulians, before being bought in the summer of 2018 by Sampdoria, where he remained for three years. Then the move to Getafe and the return home to Sparta Prague. Now the new adventure in Serie A, precisely in Cagliari. Jankto was talked about last February, when the midfielder announced his homosexuality, breaking a taboo in modern football that is still too widespread: ”I’m gay, I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to live my life in freedom without fear, prejudice and violence”. Messages of solidarity had arrived immediately, including from FIFA and UEFA. Definitely different from Abodi’s words.

The reactions

“Today, the sports minister Abodi let us know that the one of the footballer Jankto, who recently revealed his homosexuality and wants to live freely like everyone else, would be an ‘ostentation’ that he does not like. Since declaring one’s sexual orientation means flaunt something? Doesn’t Abodi think that a world with large pockets of homophobia like football needs far more messages than this? Let us better understand what he meant and above all try to show respect for people like his role as minister would impose” the words of the M5s group leader in the Senate Culture Committee, Luca Pirondini.

For Pina Picierno of the Pd, vice president of the European Parliament “the Minister’s statements are unpleasant and inappropriate, all the more so because he holds an institutional office. Unfortunately, this is yet another sign that reveals the homophobic and retrograde political culture of this government, whose positioning in terms of rights seems to want to erase years of conquests and progress. #loveislove”.