John Blankenstein (12 February 1949 in

De Bilt De Bilt () is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and town in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of in . De Bilt houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherland ...

– 25 August 2006 in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

) was a Dutch football referee and

gay rights activist A list of notable LGBTQ social movements, LGBTQ rights activists who have worked to advance LGBTQ rights by political change, legal action or publication. Ordered by country, alphabetically. Albania * Xheni Karaj, founder of Aleanca LGBT org ...

. He was notable for being one of the first

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

athletes to

come out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Professional career

As a

child A child () is a human being between the stages of childbirth, birth and puberty, or between the Development of the human body, developmental period of infancy and puberty. The term may also refer to an unborn human being. In English-speaking ...

, Blankenstein moved with his family to the city of The Hague, where he later played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

at local club VCS. At age 22, when he failed at developing a successful career as a professional football player, he started a career as a referee working for the

Royal Dutch Football Association The Royal Dutch Football Association (, ; KNVB ) is the governing body of football in the Netherlands. It organises the main Dutch football leagues ( Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie), the amateur leagues, the KNVB Cup, and the Dutch men's and w ...

. From 1980 until the end of his career, he refereed 502

professional football Professional football may refer to: *Professionalism in association football *Professional gridiron football *National Football League *Canadian Football League *Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-emine ...

matches. From 1985 until 1995, Blankenstein worked as a referee in 88 international matches and was on the list of referees of the International Federation of Association Football (

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

). Highlights of his career were the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

final in 1993 and being chosen to referee in the 1992 European Championship. In 1994, Blankenstein was selected to referee the

1994 UEFA Champions League Final The 1994 UEFA Champions League final, originally known as the 1994 European Cup final, was a Association football, football match between Italian club AC Milan, Milan and Spanish club FC Barcelona, Barcelona, played on 18 May 1994 at the Olympic ...

between

AC Milan (), commonly referred to as Milan or AC Milan () mainly outside of Italy, is an Italian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Founded in 1899, the club competes in the Serie A, the top tie ...

and

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

, only to be replaced by Englishman Philip Don a few days before the match. The contents of the official decision were never made public, but it was said that it was because

Johan Cruijff Hendrik Johannes Cruijff (25 April 1947 – 24 March 2016), internationally known as Johan Cruyff (), was a Dutch professional football player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest players in history and as the greatest Dutch footballe ...

and

Ronald Koeman Ronald Koeman (; born 21 March 1963) is a Dutch professional Manager (association football), football manager and former Football player, player who is the manager of the Netherlands national football team, Netherlands national team. Koeman scor ...

, both FC Barcelona players, were from the Netherlands. Blankenstein himself later stated it had been because of him being openly homosexual. After his career as a referee, Blankenstein became head of 'Referee-Affairs Professional Football' for the Royal Dutch Football Association in the city of

Zeist Zeist () is the Capital city, capital and largest town of the Zeist (municipality), municipality of Zeist. The town is located in the Utrecht (province), Utrecht province of the Netherlands, east of the city of Utrecht. History The town of " ...

Homosexuality

During the 1980s and 1990s, Blankenstein became well known internationally for being one of the first openly homosexual football referees. Blankenstein was active in various anti-discrimination charities and was a celebrity in the Netherlands. For breaking with the

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

on the subject of homosexuality in football, the Dutch

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

advocacy Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...

organization

COC Nederland COC Nederland, also known as COC Netherlands, is a Dutch LGBTQ+ rights group founded in 1946. COC originally stood for ''Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum'' (Center for Culture and Leisure), which was intended as a "cover" name for its real purpos ...

awarded him the Bob Angelo medal in 2003. Until June 2004, Blankenstein was chairman of COC Haaglanden, the branch of COC Nederland in the city of

. During the summer of 2004, he became one of the founders of Homo LesBische Federatie Nederland. In 2005, he was awarded the Harry Stapels Award by the sports organization, NCS, for ten years of supporting the

emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure Economic, social and cultural rights, economic and social rights, civil and political rights, po ...

of homosexual sportsmen and -women. On Friday, 25 August 2006, Blankenstein died in the Leyenburg Hospital in The Hague, Netherlands due to a rare

kidney In humans, the kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped blood-filtering organ (anatomy), organs that are a multilobar, multipapillary form of mammalian kidneys, usually without signs of external lobulation. They are located on the left and rig ...

-related disease. To continue his work for acceptance of and equal rights for homosexual people in sports, the John Blankenstein Foundation was founded on 18 December 2008. On 13 January 2009, the city of The Hague established an annual award for gay-emancipation and named it the John Blankenstein Award in his honor.

References

Literature

* ''Soccer Vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics'', by Gabriel Kuhn, PM Press 2011. {{DEFAULTSORT:Blankenstein, John 1949 births 2006 deaths Deaths from kidney failure in the Netherlands Dutch football referees Dutch gay sportsmen Dutch LGBTQ rights activists LGBTQ history in the Netherlands People from De Bilt UEFA Euro 1992 referees 20th-century Dutch LGBTQ people Sportspeople from Utrecht (province) 20th-century Dutch sportsmen