It has been revealed three big names in Australian rugby league once threatened to boycott a footy tour out of fear of rooming with Ian Roberts because they’d heard he was gay.
The claims about Roberts — who is the first and only Aussie male rugby league player to come out as gay — are revealed in an upcoming documentary titled Light – The Ian Roberts Story.
Per The Sydney Morning Herald, the doc includes an interview with former Australian Rugby League boss John Quayle, who recalled being given an ultimatum by three players ahead of the Kangaroos’ tour of England in 1994.
“I was quite shocked a little while later when Ian was selected for Australia to go on a Kangaroo tour, the representatives – three at the time, players – came into the office of to indicate that if Ian Roberts was selected in the team, they wouldn’t want to go,” Quayle said.
Quayle said the incident occurred right before Roberts had come out publicly and that the trio of players had “heard the rumours that Ian was gay”.
“I remember one in particular used strong language and those languages back then was, ‘He’s a p**f … we don’t want to room in that situation’,” Quayle recalled.
The situation came to a head when Quayle spoke with then-Chairman of the ARL, Ken Arthurson, who told him that the three players wouldn’t be selected for the tour if they had a problem rooming with Roberts.
“I went to Ken and said, ‘Look, we’ve got a couple of players here that, if selected, don’t want to tour with Ian Roberts.’ Well, Ken Arthurson was absolutely shocked because he was a long-term administrator, he’d never heard – like any of us – something like this,” Quayle recalled.
“So Ken’s comment to me, which I remember so clearly, was, ‘Well that’s good mate, just tell them they won’t be selected. That’s an easy decision.’ And that was it,” he added.
While Quayle stopped short of revealing the identity of the players — saying doing so would not be “in my interest” — he did admit that the trio were senior players and big names in the sport.
“Oh, very much so,” Quayle said when asked whether they were senior players.
For his part, Roberts said he “can’t watch” the clip of Quayle recalling the story and “hadn’t got all the way through it”. The footy icon also revealed that he “became good friends” with those he went on tour with.
The documentary — which details Roberts’ coming out story as well as the broader struggles of queer youth across Australia — was conceived of in the wake of the Manly Pride jersey scandal back in 2022.
At the time, seven Manly players boycotted a game in protest over wearing the rainbow-inspired jersey for a pride match.
“It saddens me in 2022 that we are having this conversation,” Roberts said of the controversy at the time. “I feel for all the kids out in the suburbs who are dealing with their sexuality and sex identity issues having to deal with this story yet again.”
Lead images: Getty Images
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