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When the A-League’s Josh Cavallo came out, he became the only openly gay player in men’s top soccer. Now he’s helping others to break barriers
Josh Cavallo didn’t know Thomas Beattie, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The young A-League footballer’s life had become so miserable he was ready to share his deepest secret with a stranger from the other side of the world.
Cavallo was sick of living a lie. Tired of being fake. But he was also terrified that if anyone learnt the truth about him, his ability to play the game he loved – and his career – would be over. After all, he could not find one current player in the top leagues of men’s soccer anywhere in the world who had openly admitted to feeling as he did.
The athletic left back for Adelaide United fancies men, not women. At 16, the realisation had caused confusion and turmoil. At 21, he’d accepted he was gay but feared nobody else would: being gay and playing football didn’t go together. So he kept his secret, even as it fed growing paranoia and isolation. He needed advice. He wanted a role model.
While he could find no gay male players, there were some who had come out after their careers finished. “And one that struck me was Thomas,” Cavallo says.
Beattie was a former English professional who had also played in North America and Singapore. It was only after a severe head injury ended his career prematurely that he revealed his sexuality. “I really wanted to talk to him,” Cavallo says. “He’s walked my path. He knows what it’s like.” Yet the layers of disguise Cavallo had built up over years would not shed easily. Time after time, after tapping out his Instagram message to Beattie, he’d be hit by a wave of panic and delete it. “Then I bit the bullet, I sent it to him,” he says. “And within two minutes he’s opened it. He was in Miami [in the US]. He got back to me and said, ‘Josh, I feel like you’re telling my story to me.’ And from there we jumped onto FaceTime.” Cavallo is telling me this with a big smile across his broad, bearded face...
