![\"Rob](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/93f48691263d42833acfc63a29a4bf2740a6abdc.png\")
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Rob Sharp<\/p>\n
March 25, 2026 \u2014 11:31pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n Save this article for later<\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n Got it<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Former Brisbane Lion and SANFL champion Leigh Ryswyk has created history by becoming the first past or present openly gay male AFL player.<\/p>\n Ryswyk played one game for the Lions in 2005 but was delisted at the end of the season after suffering a quad strain during his debut against Fremantle. He went on to complete a magnificent career in the SANFL, where he played 226 games for North Adelaide and was later inducted into the Queensland Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n Ryswyk, who was born in Victoria, came out as gay during an interview on Wednesday with GayFL on LGBTQI broadcaster, JOY 94.9.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cTo people who know me, my closest friends, this is not new,\u201d the 41-year-old told the station.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been out for five years now. There will be people though, if they do listen to this, it will be the first time they know about this; I\u2019m a very private person, so it\u2019s not all over my social media, and things like that, and that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n His decision follows that of former West Coast player Mitch Brown, who revealed he was bisexual in late 2025<\/a>, becoming the league\u2019s first openly bisexual player.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a bit of a shock to some people, they might not know … but that\u2019s life, right?\u201d Ryswyk said.<\/p>\n He was asked by JOY what the AFL could do to support other players who might come out in the future.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cI think the AFL, and the community, will wrap their arms around that player,\u201d Ryswyk said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the community itself, obviously the queer community, the fan base, I think in the whole they will celebrate that when the time comes.\u201d<\/p>\n Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Ryswyk](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/a6409f047c5f3d70a9647ff1dc634ffe7f6b01d7a8f770e91d4b5cc344fd346a.jpeg\")
Ryswyk in a photo shoot for the North Adelaide Football Club.North Adelaide Football Club<\/p>\n![\"Eagles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0f964ce5a71f41832c878943099a26b611ce3377.jpeg\")
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Rob Sharp is an online editor for The AgeConnect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rob Sharp March 25, 2026 \u2014 11:31pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-563629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}