Jakub Jankto

The Czech Republic international made the announcement on his social media, saying "I no longer want to hide". The former Udinese midfielder is currently on ...

I have my friends. I have my weaknesses. Jankto joined Getafe from Serie A club Udinese for €6m in 2021. I have a family. No more questions. No further comments.

Czech football star Jakub Jankto has become the first active international men's player to announce he is gay.

[Jake Daniels](http://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/football/jake-daniels-blackpool-spt-int/index.html), an 18-year-old striker for Blackpool in England’s second tier, came out in May 2022. You’re a true inspiration, and European football is with you!” UEFA, European football’s governing body, wrote: “Well done, Jakub. Like everybody else, I also want to live my life in freedom without fears, without prejudice, without violence, but with love. “No further comments. No more questions.

"I am a homosexual and I no longer want to hide myself."

Jon Holmes, an LGBT+ advocate, said the message by the Sparta Prague midfielder 'has broken the mould he created'

“I think it says a lot about the state of your industry and the environments people have created if you have people who feel confident and comfortable enough to share their truth. But there’s lots of different aspects to this, including how those in the media talk about this topic. Holmes is keen to stress however, that expecting the actions of individual players to change an entrenched culture is not helpful and unlikely to succeed. Whether or not some people are able to be themselves in the dressing-room space we don’t know, but obviously in the public space they obviously haven’t yet felt confident enough to share that. Jankto is a Czech international footballer who has played in La Liga and Serie A and is in the peak years of his career. “[Jankto’s statement] is quite significant in the fact he’s 27 years old, he’s already built an image of himself in the mind of the public, in the mind of fans,” Holmes says.

The 27-year-old Jakub Jankto is a former Udinese and Sampdoria star and is presently on loan at Sparta Prague from LaLigas Getafe.

However, the 27-year-old continues that he also wants to live his life in “freedom without fears, without prejudice, without violence, but with love”. The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). The global union for players, Fifpro also said on social media, “Live your life, Jakub. Sparta Prague concluded the statement by saying, “No further comments. Supporting Jankto’s decision to come out as gay, Sparta Prague released a statement saying that the 27-year-old spoke openly about his sexual orientation with the club “some time ago”. The club then says that everything else concerns the personal life of the player.