Watford were the only team in the Premier League to permit their players to talk about racism in football for a BBC documentary, it has been revealed.

The short film Shame in The Game: Racism in Football is available to stream online via BBC iPlayer and features interviews with Andre Gray, Tom Cleverley, Troy Deeney and new Watford Ladies signing Renee Hector, while former striker Marvin Sordell was also interviewed and claims that racism was a big contributing factor in his decision to retire from the game at the age of just 28.

A statement at the end of the programme states that all 20 Premier League clubs were approached for permission to talk to their players about the issue, but only Watford agreed.

The players shared their experiences of racism in the game, with particular focus on the wide-ranging racist abuse a number of their players received following the FA Cup semi-final with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Watford's new campaign to tackle discriminatory behaviour themselves.

"All you're doing is living your dream, and qualifying for the final of the FA Cup," Gray told the programme.

"People want to get bitter and think of ways to offend you and get in your head and, for some reason or not, that's the way they wanted to go about it.

"You get called everything under the sun, just things that you don't expect to see. Nothing got done about it. The police didn't do nothing, or the FA. People higher up didn't pay any attention to it. It's not the best place to be in."

Those events were described as "eye-opening" by Cleverley who in-turn said the Premier League owes a great deal of its success to multiculturalism.

"I think that was a big eye opener for everyone of how direct and personal the abuse got," he said.

"We've probably the most multicultural squad in the league and we took a stance together, which was the main thing.

"How many nationalities, skin colours are absolute megastars in this league? Without these players the Premier League would be not even half the league it is."

Away from that FA Cup match, Hector, the Watford Ladies player who recently returned to the club, spoke about about an incident in which she was racially abused during an important match while playing for Tottenham Hotspur Ladies and the effect it had on her mentally.

"I just couldn't believe it because obviously we've never heard of an incident like that on the pitch in women's football," she said after a Sheffield United player made monkey noises at her while she was playing.

"I think the moment where it really sank in was when I went into the changing room and I was telling my team-mates, 'I can't believe what just happened, the number eight just made monkey noises in my ear as I just went to head the ball' and I think at that point, that's when I started to feel anger and frustration and just really couldn't believe what had just happened. I got a bit animated and upset at half-time.

"There were times I went home from training and I'd just be crying on the way home and I didn't really leave my house. There was a week, my mum had to drag me out at one point just to go to Tesco."

The film features several other important people from the world of football calling for more to be done to prevent discriminatory behaviour in the game and a consultant for the show, Sordell, who played up front for Watford from 2009-2012 said it is up to the sport's governing bodies to protect players.

"We're all in this together as players. All the players are just there to earn a living, to live their dream, to be successful," he said.

"The footballing authorities, FIFA, the FA, UEFA, they just need to do better for players, really."