Giroud: It's impossible to display homosexuality in football

The France and Chelsea striker says it is impossible to show homosexuality in football and says football has a lot of work to do to on the subject of being gay in a dressing room.

Olivier Giroud has told French Magazine, Le Figaro, that football still has a lot of work to do in fostering a culture of acceptibility regarding gay football players and says he understand the "pain and difficulty of guys coming out".

The Chelsea striker posed for gay magazine Têtu when he played in France and says via The Guardian "I am ultra-tolerant on it – when I was in Montpellier I was engaged in this fight by posing for [the magazine] Têtu."

Giroud spoke about the only openly gay player to have played in the Premier League to date in Thomas Hitzlsperger: "It was very emotional. This is when I told myself that it was impossible to display his homosexuality in football. In a changing room, there is a lot of testosterone, rooming together, collective showers … It’s tricky but it’s like that."

"At Arsenal when they asked me to wear the ‘Rainbow Laces’ in support of the gay community, I did it. There is still a lot of work in the football world on this subject, to say the least," he continued.