July 24 (Reuters) - A Twitter account, which claimed to be from a soccer player who was preparing to come out as gay, has been deleted.
The anonymous account 'The Gay Footballer' had stated a news conference would be held on Wednesday where he would come out publicly as a "proud, confident, gay professional footballer".
There are no openly gay male players in professional football in England.
A message was posted to the account saying "I thought I was stronger. I was wrong" before it was deleted.
The account had attracted over 50,000 followers.
(Reporting by Simon Evans, editing by Nick Mulvenney)
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