Saints players will make an individual choice whether to openly support a campaign by Gay Rights Charity Stonewall this weekend by wearing rainbow coloured laces.

Gay Right campaign group Stonewall have sent consignments of rainbow coloured laces to all 92 Premier & Football League clubs and it has asked all players to wear them in this weekend's fixtures to highlight their campaign against homophobia in football.

The Premier League has stated that it is each individual players choice as to whether to wear the laces or not, but also said that itb had not been consulted by Stonewall about the campaign and that if it had it would have been happy to work with Stionewall to give the campaign a bigger and better focus as it was an issue that the Premier league backed.

In footballing history there have only been three high profile players who have "come out" Leeds United player Robbie Rogers announced back in February that he was quitting the club due to the fact he was gay and that he could not face the pack mentality in football when this became public knowledge although he has since gone back on that decision and now plays for LA Galaxy in the MLS.

Anton Hysen, son of former Liverpool player Glen, is a player in the Swedish lower leagues and came out in 2011 and remains the only publicly gay player in full time professional football in Europe.

Saints themselves have a connection with the third publicly gay player, Justin Fashanu played for the club on loan in 1982, he came out in public in 1990 and continued his career in the game, although by this time he was well past his peak, in 1998 allegations were made by a teenager in Maryland USA about Fashanu who fled to England and was found hanged in a garage.

Syptomatic of the time, when he announced he was gay Fashanu's brother John, also a professional player made some harsh comments about his brother, although he has since said he regrets making some of the comments.

Photo: Action Images

Paul_Soton added 16:40 - Sep 18 Now I know some players may actually struggle to be intelligent enough to lace their own boots nowadays but supporting the Kick-it-Out campaign, which isn't just about racism but also homophobia, should be standard. The Stonewall group is about reducing homophobia so players should learn to lace their boots... I especially hope ethnic minority players support in full the Kick-it-Out aims.

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moran89thmin added 17:08 - Sep 18 These are now more tolerant times and a player's sexuality shouldn't be an issue anymore. Who cares which way a player leans as long as he can make a well-timed challenge and pass intelligently, or collect the ball outside the box, evade the defence and stick the ball in the net? I don't see a problem and I hope the initiative gets the support it deserves.
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