Justin Fashanu is the only gay footballer that has ever played professional football in England. That's right - the only one, ever. This brief blight on football's landscape happened for a few seasons in the early 1980s. He notched a goal of the season, got hounded out of a few football clubs, was disowned by his brother and hanged himself.
Fortunately nobody gay has ever played football professionally before or since.
Yesterday, the FA pulled out of a launch of a new film created by Ogilvy to raise awareness of homophobia in football. A promising, if somewhat eye-watering sounding script was canned. Someone got cold feet.
Whilst those involved in the project have been discussing the merits or (lack of) in the film, the more depressing aspect is that a sport which is institutionally homophobic remains institutionally homophobic through more inactivity. The FA couldn't decide what it wants for lunch without resorting to a bout of politicking and bickering - eventually settling on starvation via inertia. It's taken two years to get to yesterday's cancellation - and the budget set aside for the project would buy you an hour of John Terry's time.
And all the while the familiar, tedious debate around the concept of the 'role model' continues. Another week passes of hot air and news print around nothing. A model works her way through Terry and his mates, 50,000 sing "Chelsea legend," whilst the lonely corpse of Justin Fashanu continues to swing under a bridge.
Poor.
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