Site for gay footy fans riles players

Site for gay footy fans riles players - News - www.realfooty.com.au

Unaccountably, inexplicably this story really annoys me.

Here we have a web site that in the main aggregates photographs of attractive footballers (whether in revealing poses or not) and collates them for the delectation of those men prefer attractive men to attractive women. Australia's a relatively free country, homosexuality's been decriminalised, and these photographs were already in the public domain.

The article in no way makes clear that the photographs that are 'of significant concern' are just those photographs that were not otherwise in the public domain .

One of the photos the association objected to showed Kangaroo Shannon Grant from
the waist up in the shower, posing with the 1999 premiership cup

Presumably then he covers up at the beach for fear of being ogled. And if he doesn't what to be ogled what the hell was poor Shannon doing posing while stripped to the waist. We're not even cutting to the chaste with the waist thing (oh, and with a name like that frankly he's getting what he asks for).

"Photographs that show a player in a socially embarrassing position such as
in the showers and in various states of undress are defamatory . . ." he
said.

I looked up defamatory and found: "containing defamation; calumnious, slanderous".

I looked up defamation and found: "the uttering of slanderous words with a view to injure another's reputation"

Slander, according to the same source is a "false tale or report maliciously uttered, and tending to injure the reputation of another; the uttering of such reports..." while calumny is "false accusation of a crime or offence, knowingly or maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another"

Now admittedly the source of these definitions is not a legal text book or dictionary but rather a dog eared Websters that I happen to have close at hand as I work. Nevertheless I rather struggle to make the connection between the serious offences outlined in the definitions and the general appreciation of the male (clothed, semi-clothed or naked) form.

Mr Shinners [players association legal services consultant] denied players were concerned about being associated with a gay
website, saying the concern was about privacy.

Which goes absolutely no way to explaining why the source sites have not evidently been pursued with equal rigour.

Sadly, as a result of the harassment of this harmless bit of fun the photo gallery in its entirety has been taken down. As a substitute all I can offer you is ugly footballers dot com. Sorry 'bout that.