Former England footballer, John Fashanu has revealed that he went to great extents to prevent his elder brother, Justin Fashanu from coming out as gay.

He said he paid him £75K to keep quietabout it.

Speaking about his brother Justin since his tragic suicide in 1998, he said:

“I begged him, I threatened him, I did everything I could possibly do to try and stop him coming out. I gave him the money because I didn’t want the embarrassment for me or my family. Had he come out now, it would be a different ball game. There wouldn’t be an issue, but there was then. Things are different now. Now he’d be hailed a hero.” 

Justin Fashanu shot himself into the limelight with a stunning goal against Liverpool in 1980, Nottingham Forest subsequently shelled out a record £1million for him but he failed to hit the heights expected.

In a newspaper interview in 1990, he claimed to have had an affair with a married Tory MP he met in a gay bar. John, 53, said:

“I’ll never forget when Justin first told me. He called me in the evening time and said to me: ‘I’m gay’. Then he said to me: ‘I’m planning to go to a newspaper’. I said to him: ‘Oh heavens forbid... oh my God. We don’t need that. You’re mad’. He promised when I gave him the money he would not go out and say that. Two days later... bang... headlines in a newspaper. I looked like a sucker. For me and my family it was like Hiroshima or Nagasaki on our lives. It knocked us dead, it was a total shock.

“People might not like it, but I was trying to protect my family. You’ve got to remember the public’s perception of homosexuality at that time was that it was an abomination . It was taboo. Street boys were beating up gays in nightclubs. I give him credit for having the courage to come out and say it. But it caused a lot of confusion and animosity towards him, me, and my family.

“During matches, 30, 40, sometimes 45,000 supporters sang at me: ‘You’re big... you’re black... your a*** is up for grabs... Fashanu... Fashanu’. As a result of him saying what he said, my mother died because of the stress. She actually died a year later on the day of his birthday.

"She was already old, very fragile and suffering cancer. Then to be told her second eldest son was a homosexual was too much.”

“I’ve never spoken about these things before because I was stamped a homophobe. But things have changed and I make it very clear: I was wrong. It was ignorance on my behalf. I didn’t understand him. I was trying to protect my family and I was worried about the effect on my career. In the process I lost my brother and I am very sad about that.

“He committed suicide because he was so distraught the world would not accept a black man who was homosexual. I couldn’t understand it and I couldn’t accept it and so whatever relationship we had before was killed .

“Previous to that, we had been very close, but it just shattered everything. I didn’t speak to him again. There’s a lot of sadness and regrets.” he added.

The former Wimbledon striker made the shock admission a week after it emerged that two top footballers – including an England star – plan to come out.