So, today was meant to be the day.

Today was supposed to be the day where whoever was running the viral Twitter account, The Gay Footballer, was to reveal their identity.

Thousands of people around the country were set to welcome Britain’s only actively-playing male out gay footballer - someone who could become an idol, an icon and a trailblazer for many.

It would have been a milestone moment that would have gone a long way to changing levels of acceptance - both with how gay people are perceived in football, and how gay people perceive football themselves.

But, no. This was all likely a hoax. Some may even say it was a scam. Perhaps it was a game being played by an attention seeker, someone without a care in the world for other people’s emotions.

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An out gay footballer in the male professional leagues in England was the kind of hero I needed growing up. Teenagers and adults alike who are going through the same struggle now that I did when I was younger will hopefully get their idol soon.

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But let’s be honest, it’s probably a good thing it did not happen like this.

The whole episode has left me feeling completely insulted, from start to finish.

I’ve grown up in and around football clubs at different levels, whether it be in the changing room, on the terrace or in the club office. And for the past five years, I have been working on the sports desk of the Mirror. Football has been my life, still is, and always will be.

Regardless of how accepting I am of myself, I am still not fully comfortable with being out in a host of football environments. In fact, most people who know me from the game, who are reading this, will probably only be finding out for the first time.

The fear, quite simply, has been one of not being accepted, because being an out gay man working in men’s football makes you one of only a very, very small selection of people to have that title in and around the game. And the fear of not being accepted stems from people making being gay in football a sensation.

(Image: Reading Titles)

That is where the Gay Footballer Twitter account has left me angry. It did exactly that. It made being gay in football a sensational thing. I had hoped we were past those times.

Yes, a player coming out will be headline news and a great story, but should it be built up into such a storm of pseudo excitement?

I want gay and bisexual male footballers to know they can come out publicly if they want to. Maybe that’s because they’ve fallen in love, and they want to go to an event with their boyfriend. Maybe it’s because they want to be the role model that they needed when they were younger. Or maybe it's simply because they want to live their lives as themselves.

But the social media circus this Twitter account has created has just fuelled a rumour mill of people desperate to find out who ‘The Gay Footballer’ is.

Just look at the replies to the account’s tweets before it was deleted. Alongside the rafts of support (which, for the record, was incredible to see), there was still a host of people saying ‘can’t wait to find out who you are’.

Check Google, too. Searches for ‘gay footballer’ have increased by over 900 per cent since the account appeared in early July. The top related search, depressingly, is: ‘who is the gay footballer?’

If you type ‘gay footballer’ in the nav bar - and remember, those results are built on previous searches - it gives you gay footballer ‘rumour’, ‘identity’ and, perhaps the worst of the lot, ‘odds’.

(Image: The FA via Getty Images)

This is what people were left wanting by the account’s creation. They were not left wanting a trailblazer who could help change people's lives forever. They wanted gossip and rumours… again, sensationalism.

Media outlets must also examine their own role in this cycle; while there is human interest in a story such as this, there must always be sensitivity shown to any individual going through the often arduous process of coming out, and those who are close to that person.

The feeling that being an out gay man in football is still considered a taboo is the exact reason I have never fully been open in sport. I find it disgusting that someone, or a group of people, behind a Twitter account would play on that for three weeks and then run away - even fooling well-respected broadcasters and journalists in the process.

An active out gay footballer is the idol that I needed, is the idol I still need now, and is the idol that many people, young and old, are desperate for as they come to terms with who they are.

At the end of the day, a lot of the people we look up to at the moment are merely fictional characters from books and films. The real people don’t exist.

The Gay Footballer Twitter account feels like an insult to so many people; almost a step backwards.

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But let’s not forget, society has never been more ready for an out gay footballer. The LGBTQ+ community would undeniably be grateful for respectable representation on the pitch.

We just have to hope that this whole debacle has not put people off being open about themselves.