A beautiful game turned ugly?

Is it a beautiful game? Or one ugly with prejudice? Would you come out if you were a gay professional footballer? When will gay men feel comfortable in the crowd at a football match? And when will openly gay teenagers feel welcomed into school and local teams? These are just some of the questions they need to address at this week’s Downing Street Football summit. And that’s before they even get onto racism. It should be a busy day.

Last weeks headlines suggested the summit was merely about racism – a response to the Suarez/Evra handshake debacle. But in fact it is supposed to go much bigger and deeper. When Britain faces such intense economic crises at home and when Syria and Iran ought to be keeping David Cameron busy enough abroad there are plenty of people who wonder why the Prime Minister should even bother with a ball game. But you could equally argue he should have spent much more time on it than he has. Football influences millions every week. It gives fathers something to talk to their children about, friends something to discuss, rivals something to argue over. The fact people pay so much to watch it both in real life and on television reveals how powerful it is.

After years of Kick it Out campaigning, lots of meetings about tackling racism in the game the FA could be forgiven for feeling a little miffed that it has become such a headline issue again. And it has come from where they least expected it – on the pitch at the highest level. In recent years there has been no shortage of top players happy to front anti-racism campaigns. And the fact men of the calibre of Rio Ferdinand or Ashley Cole became so important to their teams has been more powerful than anything. But while the terraces are not as scary for an Asian as they once were there is still a problem in the crowd too. Worse is the prejudice Asian players and teams feel at local level. And statistically it doesn’t make sense that there are not more Asian players in the higher ranks. So there are real and pressing issues to tackle on race and you can see how they might start to be tackled. But the question of homophobia in football seems altogether more challenging.

Who are going to be the first heterosexual players to show solidarity with gay colleagues? Which Premier League clubs are going to embrace the idea in a big way with poster and video campaigns? And will schools be prepared to engage on the issue too or will head teachers be concerned about bumping into the prejudices of those parents who don’t want their children taught that there is nothing strange or scary about being gay? Have you even noticed that a campaign in English football is supposed to have already started on this question? No, neither had I.