Robbie Rogers' heart-warming story confirms changing attitudes in football

This year, on the 15th of February, at 1am, in a London apartment, one man made a decision to post a honest, heartfelt confession on his personal blog.

This man, a young yet accomplished professional footballer once on the books at Leeds United, had been well aware of what this confession might have done to his career, bearing in mind the track record he was up against. A career which he had painstakingly developed since he was a child and had taken him to the proud heights of representing his country, the United States, at international level.

Despite all this, he was suffering. "Secrets", he wrote, "can cause so much internal damage", and his secret was causing him so much anguish that he made the incredibly brave decision to sacrifice all he has worked for, to forsake his career, in order to release this secret and render him, in his words, a "free man".

On the 15th of February, at 1am, in a London apartment, Robert Hampton Rogers, aka Robbie, came out as gay.

Robbie must have been aware of the only other professional footballer in Britain to come out. Justin Fashanu, once of Notts County, Nottingham Forest and Norwich City, publicly declared he was gay on the 22nd of October 1990. Since then, his career was never the same. He received abuse not only from the fans, but also from established football figures. His own brother disowned him, and as far on as 2012, he sensationally declared Justin was not gay at all. The troubled younger Fashanu sibling was driven to despair and, ultimately, suicide.

Was all this what was to await Robbie once he too came out? It was too big a risk to take, and as such, he announced his retirement from professional football at the same time as his confession. He finished the post with, "I am a free man, I can move on and live my life as my creator intended." Clearly he didn't feel that he still had a role to play in football.

The footballing community, however, had other ideas.

Within hours of the announcement, there was an outpouring of support for Rogers. Many US stars, such as Carlos Bocanegra, Stuart Holden, Oguchi Onyewu, Brad Guzan and Kasey Keller all tweeted messages of pride and respect at his coming out, as well as sadness about his retirement. In the UK, Robert Snodgrass, Clarke Carlisle, Ross McCormack, Alex Bruce and Gary Lineker, among many others, also publicly expressed their support.

Rogers himself was taken aback by the reaction, tweeting: "Thank you everyone for all of the support and love. Wasn't expecting this."

Since the initial reaction, he tried keeping a low profile, but this was difficult - the story marked a turning point in the football zeitgeist.

Since the dark days of yesteryear in which Justin Fashanu played, the attitude towards the LGBT community in sport has changed within the UK and US. Over the last few years, negativity and misinformation has slowly been making the way for tolerance, acceptance and, crucially, indifference - not seeing coming out as a big deal at all, which is the pinnacle of inclusion.

Prior to Rogers' coming out, support towards homosexuality in football came in many forms - the likes of Anders Lindegaard and Joey Barton have publicly talked about the subject and supported the prospect of a fellow footballer coming out. In January 2013, Matt Jarvis of West Ham conducted an interview and posed for pictures in Attitude magazine.

A survey by Staffordshire University showed changing attitudes in the stands too, outlining that more than 90% of football fans would not hold any hostility to a footballer coming out. Meanwhile, major clubs like Liverpool and Manchester City began initiatives in support of the LGBT community.

All of this, though, was mere preparation to the ultimate litmus test - what happens when a player actually comes out? The results, in the form of the public reaction to Rogers' coming out, turned out to be heartwarmingly positive. So much so that, in an amazing turn of events, Rogers began training with LA Galaxy at the start of May, and on the 24th, he officially came out of retirement to become a Galaxy player.

The mere fact that a professional player has knowingly put his career on the line to announce his gay, believing it would be over, only to then receive so much support that, encouraged by the positive environment, he overturned his decision in the matter of months, shows just how far not just football, but society as a whole, has come.

Obviously, this isn't the end of it. The culture of football in the UK still holds entrenched homophobic attitudes. But Robbie Rogers' story is testament to the fact that progress has been made, and continues to do so.

Crucially, part of the reason for Rogers' return to football is to become a role model for those who were still living in fear of revealing their sexuality, not just in sport, but as a whole. Initially telling the Guardian in March he "wouldn't want to deal with the circus", he spoke to USA Today Sports in May after his U-turn: "These kids are standing up for themselves and changing the world, and I'm 25, I have a platform and a voice to be a role model. How much of a coward was I to not step up to the plate?"

Even though he achieved so much merely by publicly coming out, his return to football is truly groundbreaking and a reason for celebration, a "Jackie Robinson moment" as Shawn Francis of The Offside Rules tweeted. Rogers now has the chance not only to continue his amazing journey as a professional sportsman, but to be an inspiration to millions of male football/soccer fans and players living in fear and confusion over their sexuality who now have a role model to look up to.

Blame the local authorities, supply chain and retailers for the Bangladesh disaster, not the end consumers

On April 24th, the collapse of the Rana Plaza, a commercial building in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, claimed over 600 lives. It is considered to be the deadliest garment factory accident in history, as well as the deadliest structural failure in modern human history.

The general consensus among those who have been covering and following the tragic story seems to place the majority of the blame on the building's owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, the local authorities who allowed such a poorly built structure to be constructed and for people to work in it, and the retailers and supply chain for perpetuating those conditions for the sake of profit.

However, it seems that an increasing amount of sources have decided to point the finger at the final link of the supply chain: the consumer.

The BBC published a video asking whether "clothes shoppers were concerned about the disaster", with one interviewee declaring that "a lot of people don't even bother to think about child labour or cheap labour", while The Financial Post ran an article entitled "Bangladesh factories: Shoppers turn blind eye as cheap clothes win".

Meanwhile, Sarah Morris, business development director of Trajectory Partnership, had similar scorn to pour on those who buy from such shops: "Just 10% of consumers are committed to shopping ethically. Around one-third of consumers are utterly disengaged from the very notion of ethical shopping".

This is a very simplistic and unfair view and, in reality, the bigger picture is much more complicated than this. It cannot simply be said that consumers know that, when they go into a high street clothes shop, they actively know they are buying goods which have been made using unethical labour and, figuratively speaking, have blood in the fabric, but simply do not care, because they just want to save money.

While the consumer needs to exercise a due amount of diligence when it comes to ethical shopping, it's not always that easy. Although people can be aware of the issues and make a conscious effort whenever they can to purchase goods from reputable, ethical stores, one has to take into account things like employment, commuting, and familial responsibilities, which may leave little practical time, as well as proximity to ethical outlets.

In addition, ethically made garments make up a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the overall $1 trillion global fashion industry, and given the complex web of suppliers and subcontractors involved in the industry's supply chain, it's incredibly difficult for consumers to know if whether a product has been manufactured in safe conditions.

Income also plays a major part in consumers' spending habits. Here in the UK, discount fashion retailer Primark has come under criticism for using one of the suppliers within the collapsed building. But in these austere times, with more and more people struggling to make ends meet and having to downscale their spending habits, they do not deserve to receive criticism for either wanting or needing to spend less.

People can only buy what is put out in front of them and what they can afford, and while some are able and willing to go to great lengths to ensure their purchases are as ethical as possible, we cannot demonise all other consumers who, for one reason or another, end up buying from those other clothes retailers.

So what is the answer? To boycott brands implicated in the disaster? To only buy British? Sadly this won't increase the welfare of sweatshop workers in Bangladesh, rather it will deprive them of a much needed income. The country's garment industry accounts for nearly 80% of its exports, meaning many of its people are reliant on it for their livelihoods.

And of course, anyone who's truly been keeping a close eye on the issue of ethics and welfare in the industry should remember a certain documentary which aired on Channel 4 three years ago, focusing on appalling conditions in sweatshops based in the English city of Leicester.

A disaster of the magnitude of the Rana Plaza collapse cannot be dismissed or swept under the carpet like so many previously - just seven months ago, a fire at a garment factory in Ashulia, outside, Dhaka, killed 112 people. Similar stories of buildings collapsing in Dhaka also killed high numbers of people, mostly involved in the garment industry, in 2005, 2006 and 2010.

The fashion industry shouldn't just wait for consumers to start voicing their concerns about the welfare of the products they purchase. Given the events two weeks ago, it's pretty obvious that the operation is deeply flawed. Its corporations need to band together and implement measures as soon as possible, such as having ground staff carry out audits in the factories, as opposed to merely pushing for them as they've been doing for years with few tangible results. The UK government also needs to step in to ensure more transparency and good conduct in the supply chain to help ensure this kind of disaster doesn't repeat itself.