Rugby League launches anti-homophobia guidance

The Rugby Football league has published a guide to combat homophobia in the sport. The guide, entitled Guidance for Rugby League Clubs – Challenging anti gay (homophobic) abuse and behaviour (pdf - 3.1Mb), was recently launched in Parliament to widespread critical acclaim.

It was produced with the support and contributions of Stonewall and Pride Sports as well as the Rugby League Ground Safety Officers Association and a numbers of club representatives from both the professional and community game. The guidance has been produced with the intention of providing practical information and recommendations that are relevant to Rugby League.

The guidance provides useful strategies to challenging homophobia, from the`causal’ use of the term`gay’ to refer to anything negative to homophobic abuse directed at individuals in both the club setting as well as match days. There are a number of useful stand alone pages which can be used and disseminated as summaries of good practice and flowcharts of possible actions.

Although this guidance has been produced specifically for Rugby League it could easily be adapted to suit other sports (please acknowledge the RFL if you do so). As a first of its kind in any sport this guidance is intended to evolve over time and, as such, the RFL would welcome any examples of good practice or case studies where a club has successfully challenged homophobia or has experienced particular challenges.

It can be downloaded from the LGBTHM website (see link above) or from the RFL website here.