On more than one occasion at the press launch of his new TV show on RT (formerly known as Russia Today), Stan Collymore references the “elephant in the room” and jokes sarcastically about being little more than a ventriloquist’s dummy having words put in his mouth by a sinister puppet-master with an arm up his back. His sensitivity is understandable.

News that the footballer-turned-broadcaster had signed up with the Kremlin-funded news channel was greeted with scepticism in British sports media circles. In one of Collymore’s frequent social media spats, coincidentally a debate about whether or not the Syrian national football team is a government propaganda tool, one senior sportswriter insinuated that, as somebody working for “an arm of the Kremlin”, Collymore was in no position to lecture anyone on the subject of journalism.

In recent years, more than one news reporter has resigned from RT on the grounds that they were uncomfortable with the network’s editorial output. In 2014, an RT-America news anchor, Liz Wahl, quit live on air after accusing her former employers of whitewashing the actions of the president, Vladimir Putin, and asking her to “promote Russian foreign policy”. Closer to home, the reporter Sara Firth resigned over what she believed to be biased coverage of the 2014 Malaysian Airlines disaster in Ukraine. “It was the most shockingly obvious misinformation and it got to the point where I couldn’t defend it any more,” she told the Guardian.

While it would be fanciful to think Putin has identified an outspoken, often belligerent, 46-year-old former Premier League striker from Cannock as the ideal mouthpiece with which to undermine the British parliament and European Union through the medium of a weekly football magazine show, Collymore is all too aware that he is tainted by association with his new employers.

We can easily stereotype and pigeonhole people that do not deserve to be stereotyped and pigeonholed, says Stan Collymore. Photograph: Stephenson/JMP/Rex Shutterstock

“I will happily send you an email from 30 June, before the bosses gave the go-ahead to do the show and I put a calendar from pre-season to the end of the World Cup,” he said in an interview at the no-expense-spared launch at Bafta’s well appointed central London headquarters. “The show hadn’t even been agreed then and I have been given access to do every single thing on that calendar and you will see the date. Don’t forget, if we can get past the fact that nobody from RT has their arm up my back telling me to ‘say this’, it’s a news channel that doesn’t even do a sport bulletin. Every single topic I’ve done, I’ve done with complete autonomy, with plenty of help, but with complete autonomy.”

In response to a follow-up message requesting a copy of the email, Collymore said he’d changed his mind and no longer wished to send it but would instead just show it to me some time. My assurances that its contents – his ideas for various features and interviews that will make up The Stan Collymore Show – would go no further fell on deaf ears.

Collymore is a divisive character, outspoken on mental health and racism issues but unable to shake off the stigma attached to him since a well-documented assault on his then girlfriend, the TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson, in a Paris bar almost two decades ago earned him unwanted tabloid headlines and public opprobrium. In his professional life, however, he is nothing if not hard-working and an unintentionally amusing Periscope video he recorded while jogging around Lille shouting “journaliste!” at French police threatening to tear gas him during a running battle with Russian football hooligans remains many people’s highlight of Euro 2016.

His output in the build-up to next summer’s World Cup promises to be slicker and less improvisational. For all the controversy surrounding his paymasters and their agenda, the teaser and accompanying package on Iceland’s qualification for Russia 2018 shown at the press launch suggests The Stan Collymore Show will make for fascinating viewing.

“We want to talk about big stories: racism, sexism, homophobia,” he says. “We want fun stories, human interest stories: Syria, Iceland. We wanted to do a look at the Russian cities, because I feel personally – and this is me talking, nobody else – that the people of Russia, and Russia as a country, [are] no different to the people of England, America, Mali, Tonga, Togo. People want to earn money, be happy, live in peace. We have stereotyped all Russian football supporters and as a mixed-race kid growing up that is pretty much how I was treated. As an England fan going to matches that’s how you are treated: you are scum, so I understand how we can easily stereotype and pigeonhole people that do not deserve to be stereotyped and pigeonholed. So we took a look at the cities: Kazan, Sochi, St Petersburg and Moscow. We took a look at the culture, the food … everyday stuff.”

Stan Collymore signs autographs for Liverpool fans before a game against Arsenal in December 1995. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex Shutterstock

While Collymore occasionally speaks of what we can look forward to as if he is the first broadcaster or journalist to dive deep into the subjects of Icelandic football, the Syrian national team’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to qualify for Russia 2018 or the Isles of Scilly football league contested by two teams who play each other 30 times a season, his enthusiasm cannot be faulted and he makes no secret of the fact that he has put a bulging contacts book to good use for his show. Gary Lineker, Fabio Cannavaro, Michael Owen, Gheorghe Hagi, Pelé and Patrick Vieira are among his guests and Collymore claims they all spoke to him candidly “knowing they could trust my broadcast journalism”.

“Patrick Vieira gave gold,” he says. “Some of you would be writing headlines now if I gave you some of the stuff that he’d said. Michael Owen ... what are the things that you think of when he does his broadcasting? Wooden, doesn’t say very much and hasn’t watched very many films in his life. We actually sat down at his stables and we all came away thinking: ‘Where the fuck did that come from?’ He was a three-dimensional human being.”

Never one to shy away from blowing his own trumpet, and considering his paymasters, only time will tell if Stan is playing his own tune.

The Stan Collymore Show airs across the world on RT from Friday 3 November