SkyNews on homophobia in UK football

Twelve years after football's only openly gay player killed himself, hostility to homosexuality is still rife in Britain's national game. Justin Fashanu, a player remembered for his talent on the field, is still the only professional ever to have had the courage to come out publicly.

It is now 12 years since he committed suicide and today his niece, Amal, campaigns to break the grip of homophobia in football. "With the Justin Campaign, we aim to have a day where people can forget about these taboos and we can just get on with our normal lives," she told Sky News. "If you are a gay footballer, you're a gay footballer. It's not my concern if you're gay. It's my concern if you play well and get those goals."

Chris Basiurski, of the Gay Football Supporters' Network, knows all about the hostility homosexuals encounter even at amateur level. He was forced to join a gay team in a gay league because of the attitude his then work team-mates had when they discovered his sexual orientation. "I was playing in a more mainstream league and when they discovered my sexuality, I was made to feel very uncomfortable," he said. "All the social side of it disappeared for me."

Publicist Max Clifford told Sky News that the hostility throughout the game extended to the very top level. Gay and bisexual players are simply too frightened of the professional and social consequences to come out in public, he said. "Over the last decade there have been four footballers who were gay or bisexual who came to see me for advice. And every one of them made it very clear that they totally believed that if they came out, their careers were finished."

The Football Association is trying to purge the game of its homophobia but the video commissioned to get the message across was quietly stuck on YouTube rather than given the traditional football razzamatazz.

It is not just a British problem.

Just this week, Vlatko Markovic, the top man in Croatian football, said: "While I'm a president of the Croatian Football Federation, there will be no homosexuals playing in the national team."

In three weeks' time, Britain will know if it is to host the 2018 World Cup.

But few in the game believe there will be any openly gay footballers in that tournament, even it if is still eight years away. So for the foreseeable future at the top level at least, being gay will, it seems, have to remain the love that dares not speak its name and openly gay footballers will have to play in a league of their own.