Scotland's first openly gay footballer Zander Murray launches blueprint to make football inclusive

Zander Murray, Scotland’s first openly gay professional footballer, has co-launched the Pride Playbook alongside Millwall Romans — Millwall FC’s LGBTQ+ football team — in a bid to give clubs a concrete framework for building inclusive environments for LGBTQ+ players and fans.

Murray came out in September 2022 with a Facebook post made while on holiday in Benidorm. He put his phone down and went to sleep. By the time he woke up, the post had gone viral, and he had become one of the few actively playing professional footballers in the world to be openly gay.

“I woke up to madness, it just went crazy viral,” the striker told The Mirror. The response brought an avalanche of messages from young footballers and people outside sport who had been struggling with their own sexuality and identity — pain Murray knew intimately. “We’re in a mental health crisis, but particularly if you’re struggling with sexuality or identity, it can feel very volatile and tough. You feel that you’re alone and I know all too well what that’s like, particularly being involved in a hyper-masculine sport. There were some really dark moments.”

Murray, who holds his club’s record for goals scored in a single season and has passed 100 career goals, spent the years between ages 13 and 29 in silence, describing a period when he felt “the only way out was to end it all”. Coming out, he says, was the beginning of a mission to ensure no one else has to carry that weight alone.

In the years since, he has become an ambassador for LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall and works regularly with Time for Inclusive Education, a Scottish charity promoting LGBT-inclusive schooling. As a motivational speaker, he visits schools, football academies and corporate organisations. He has won the Unicorn of the Year award from charity Somewhere: For Us, a Proud Scotland Award in the Sport and Recreation category, and was named by Attitude Magazine in 2023 as one of the LGBTQ trailblazers changing the world. His jersey from his 100th goal now sits in the Scottish Football Museum.

The Pride Playbook, for which Murray wrote the foreword, is designed as a practical blueprint to help clubs establish and sustain LGBTQ+ inclusive teams — covering everything from day-one welcome structures to long-term support systems. Murray said he hopes the foreword “touches people’s heartstrings, whether they’re from the community or their allies”.

The urgency behind the project is underscored by research from Censuswide, which found that 81% of LGBTQ+ fans report having personally experienced or witnessed homophobic behaviour in football settings. Murray’s call is direct: managers, captains and teammates must step up as active allies, not passive bystanders.