Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Josh Cavallo recorded the statement that he'd been too concerned to talk about publicly for a very long time.
“There's something personal that I need to share with everyone: I'm a footballer, and I am gay,” Cavallo said in a video published Wednesday by Adelaide United, his A-League club.
The 21-year-old Cavallo said he's the first player to come out while still playing in Australia's top-flight men's soccer competition. It's a rarity across the globe in men's sport, something Cavallo wants to change.
The video, which the club posted along with the message “Josh's truth,” made instant headlines in Australia and his own post and the club's version were widely shared.
Cavallo said growing up, he'd felt the need to hide himself. Not any more.
“I was ashamed I'd never be able to do what I love, and be gay,” he said. “All I want to do is play football and be treated equally. I'm tired of trying to perform at the best of your ability and to live this double life. It's exhausting. It's something that I don't want anyone to experience.”
A talented player who represented Australia at junior level, Cavallo thought people would think of him differently and treat him differently if he told them he was gay.
“But that's not the case,” he said. “If anything, you earn more respect from people. Coming out to my loved ones, my peers, my friends, my teammates, my coaches has been incredible.
“The response and support I have received is immense - it's starting to make me think, `Why have I been hiding this burden for so long?”'
Monash University researcher Erik Denison, who has conducted international research on athletes coming out in sport, said he hoped Cavallo's public announcement would be a catalyst in the sport.
“Unfortunately, it is very rare for male players to come out to their teammates in both professional and amateur sport,” Denison said, noting that Cavallo is only the fourth Australian man to come out while playing sport at the elite level. “I am glad to see Football Australia has publicly supported Cavallo, but it now needs to fulfil the public commitments it made in 2014 to `eradicate' homophobia from the sport with meaningful action.”
The A-League season is scheduled to kick off on Nov. 19, with Cavallo's Adelaide United opening against Perth Glory the following day.
Cavallo chose to make his statement ahead of the season in a bid to “inspire and show people that it's okay to be yourself and play football.”
In an interview with Australia's 10 television network, Cavallo said it was on a night that was meant for celebrations at the end of last season, when he'd received an award, that prompted him to go public.
“There was lots of positivity happening in my life. But when I got home, I just felt numb. I had no emotions,” he said. “My life was great, but it wasn't a life where I got to be my authentic self.
“Instead of celebrating, I sat in my bed crying that night. Having to constantly lie to the people I cared about wasn't the way I wanted to live the rest of my life. My double life started to have a huge influence on my mental health. Although the football was amazing, I still wasn't happy.”
After lots of reflection and some inspiration from the stories of other former players, he's fine now.
“I want to show all the other people that are struggling and are scared, whoever it may be, don't act like someone else,” he said in the video. “You were meant to be yourself, not someone else.”
Cavallo concluded the video, recorded in the safe surroundings of Adelaide home, by repeating his message: “I'm Josh Cavallo, I'm a footballer, and I'm proud to be gay.”
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.