BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Mitch Brown finally had enough as he watched unfolding coverage of yet another case of homophobic abuse in the Australian Football League, and decided it was time to change the narrative.

Brown contacted the Daily Aus with a message that the online news site published Wednesday: “I played in the AFL for 10 years for the West Coast Eagles, and I’m a bisexual man.”

In almost 130 years of top-flight competition in Australia’s homegrown football code, no past or active male player had publicly identified as bisexual or gay.

Aussie Rules was a long way behind other high-profile kinds of football, including NFL, rugby league, rugby union and soccer .

Brown, who was drafted to the Eagles as a teenager and played for the Perth, Western Australia-based club fr

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