Justin Fashanu

Who was Justin Fashanu?

Justinus Soni "Justin" Fashanu was an English footballer who played for a variety of clubs between 1978 and 1997. He was known by his early clubs to be gay, and came out to the press later in his career, becoming the first and one of only two English professional footballers to be openly gay. He was also the first black footballer to command a £1million transfer fee, with his transfer from Norwich City to Nottingham Forest in 1981, but had little success as a player afterwards, although he continued to play at senior level until 1994.

After moving to the United States, in 1998 he was questioned by police when a seventeen-year-old boy accused him of sexual assault, for which he was charged, and an arrest warrant for him was issued in Howard County, Maryland on 3 April 1998, but he had already left his flat. According to his suicide note, fearing he would not get a fair trial because of his homosexuality, he fled to England where he killed himself in London in May. His suicide note stated that the sex was consensual.