There are currently around 5,000 professional footballers in Britain, but none are openly gay. Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin Fashanu, asks why no gay player has followed in her uncle's boots in nearly 25 years.
My late uncle, Justin Fashanu remains the only professional footballer in Britain ever to come out publicly as gay.
Justin broke into football as a teenage prodigy at Norwich. In 1980 he won the BBC's goal of the season award for an incredible strike against Liverpool. I still feel a surge of family pride every time I watch it.
It's the casual celebration which always gets me. That was Justin. Effortlessly talented, effortlessly stylish, if a touch cocky.
But what I learned about Justin is that, sadly, "that goal" marked the high point of his career.
He was catapulted to fame, when Nottingham Forest paid a million pound-transfer fee to Norwich. But it was largely downhill from there.
Forest's manager, the famous Brian Clough - or in my family the infamous - took a disliking to Justin.
In his autobiography, Clough recounts the confrontation he had with Justin over rumours about frequenting gay clubs in Nottingham:
"'Where do you go if you want a loaf of bread?' I asked him. 'A baker's, I suppose.' 'Where do you go if you want a leg of lamb?' 'A butcher's.' 'So why do you keep going to that bloody poofs' club?'"
Those were the typical attitudes Justin faced in his profession, and very little had changed by the time he took the momentous decision to come out publicly a decade later in 1990.
These prejudices he had to endure saddened, rather than shocked, me. But what I did find surprising was the slow pace of change within football since my uncle's courageous step into the limelight.
I learned Justin was no angel, but he genuinely believed he was setting an example to other players facing discrimination. Sadly, it's an example no other gay player has felt able to follow in nearly 25 years.
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