TOUGH tackling former Liverpool midfielder Graeme Souness may not be the first name to spring to mind as a champion of the LGBT community.

Indeed, the one-time Rangers manager admitted “the LGBT community was something I knew nothing about”.

But during Brighton and Hove Pride Souness could be seen proudly leading a team of LGBT amateur footballers in the annual Community Parade - accompanied by a 7 metre tall inflatable football player.

He said: “I have been in the game for more than 50 years now. I don’t think in that time we have taken one step forward in the treatment of LGBT people.

“I go to stadiums most weeks and there is still an idiot at most games who you can hear shouting abuse.”

Souness took on the symbolic role as boss of Proud United, a team of LGBT footballers from across the UK, as part of betting company Paddy Power’s parade float this year.

This is also linked to the company’s Come Out and Play campaign which looks to help create an environment in professional football in which gay players feel comfortable and safe.

Souness said: “I’ve been working with Paddy Power for more than two years now and when they first approached me with this idea I was not sure.

“But after a couple of meetings I was easily convinced. They pointed out that no professional footballers were openly gay.

“Nobody currently playing feels they are comfortable or secure enough to come out.

“When you look at the strides the LGBT community has made in the last 20 years it’s enormous, but in football there has been nothing.”

In 2017 FA Chairman Greg Clarke said that he was “personally ashamed” that gay football players do not feel safe to come out, adding that the current footballing environment could not guarantee the safety of gay players.

Souness wants to change that.

He said: “I’m leading a team of amateurs and hoping it reaches somebody at the highest level of football’s governing bodies.

“This is something that has to be addressed. I’m here to say that homophobia still exists in the game from the very top to the very bottom and something needs to be done.”

Paddy Power, owner of Paddy Power, said Souness was the perfect person to spearhead this campaign, saying he had been championing diversity in football for a long time.

Souness signed the first black and catholic players for Rangers - Mark Walters in 1987 and Mo Johnston in 1999 respectively.

Mr Power said: “It’s just bananas that football is so far behind society.

“Most other areas are far more diverse, forward thinking and modern, but football is stuck in the past.

“At some point in the future society will look back and think ‘how on earth did we let that happen’.

“So this seems like the right thing to do. We have enough money to put something like this together and a lot of our customers are football fans, so we are able to do our own little bit, influence people and send out positive messages.

“But those higher up in football do need to grab this situation by the short and curlies.”

A Paddy Power spokesman said: “Back in the late 1980’s Graeme Souness was at the height of his Rangers revolution and ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, by Kylie Minogue was No.1 in the charts.

"Now for the first time ever, those two powerful forces - a singer from Down Under, and a one-time underdog – are both at Brighton Pride to celebrate and support the LGBTQ community in their own respective way.

"Thankfully Souness isn’t the one sporting the gold hotpants.”