(he had attempted to sell false stories regarding him and a number of cabinet ministers to the press), and returned to the United States to coach youth football in Georgia. He later moved to Atlanta Ruckus but was suspended for the playoffs for failure to comply with the terms of his contract, before joining Miramar Rangers in New Zealand in 1997. He then moved to Ellicott City, Maryland to coach the Maryland Mania, a new professional team in the second division USL A-League, following his officially announced retirement from the professional game. Coming out in the press Fashanu agreed to an exclusive with The Sun tabloid newspaper to come out as gay. They ran the headline as "£1m Football Star: I AM GAY" on 22 October 1990. He claimed to have had an affair with a married Conservative MP, whom he first met in a London gay bar. "We ended up in bed together at his London flat", he said. A week later, his brother John Fashanu agreed to an exclusive with The Voice under the headline "John Fashanu: My Gay Brother is an Outcast." Justin Fashanu was interviewed for the July 1991 cover story of Gay Times, where the situation was summarised as: The Sun dragged out the tale with titillating stories of sexual encounters with unnamed MPs, football players and pop stars, which, he claims, were largely untrue. The revelations, nevertheless, earned him a considerable sum of money but he says he was offered even more by others who wanted him to stay in the closet. He admits that he wasn't fully prepared for the backlash that followed and his career in football ... has suffered "heavy damage". Although he's fully fit, no club has offered him a full-time contract since the story first appeared. In 1992, he agreed to front Loud'n'proud, a new national radio series aimed at young lesbians and gay men, but the pilot with Fashanu presenting was turned down by BBC Radio 5; it was later commissioned, with a female presenter, for BBC Radio 1. Fashanu was the subject of an early internet meme in 1996 when the BBC opened their poll for the Sports Personality of the Year award to e-mail votes for the first time. An online campaign was organised among students in an attempt to enable him to win the title, but his votes were excluded from the final tally by