Ah, the age old questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? Is the Premier League ready for an openly gay player? As with all such questions, the debate rages on.

Former Norwich striker Chris Sutton certainly seems to think so, writing in the Daily Mail (known for being a bastion of tolerance) that an openly gay footballer would be “the best thing that happens to the homophobia debate”. And in the very same week, FA chairman Greg Clarke advised that gay players would still suffer “significant abuse” should they choose to come out publicly.

For a sport that, at its best, can unite people across the world, football’s seemingly entrenched relationship with homophobia remains one of the scourges of the modern game.
The tragedy of player Justin Fashanu’s suicide in 1998 still looms over any discussion of football’s extreme heteronormativity, and although the wider acceptance and legal protection of LGBT+ individuals has improved manifold since then, the world of football seems to have lagged behind. Campaigns such as the FA’s ‘Kick it Out’ have helped to reduce the acceptability of homophobia, and yet the year is 2016 and we have still not had an openly gay player in the BPL.

Part of the problem is that it is a great unknown: for many players, coming out might mean career suicide – or would it? Looking across the pond, to that game Americans call football, the NFL, might offer some kind of idea.

In 2013, Michael Sam became the first openly gay American football player to be drafted into the NFL. The NFL draft is a hideously complex affair, quite different from the Premier League, but the culture of toxic hyper-masculinity is one and the same. Indeed, from the very moment he was drafted – 259th pick, by the St. Louis Rams – Sam generated controversy.

The NFL draft is one of the big moments in American sporting television, when college hopefuls find out whether or not they have done enough to be selected for a high-paying professional football career. Sam was no different: for him, this was the culmination of years of hard work, training, and dedication. So when he found out he had been drafted, like many others, he shared a kiss with his partner – except his partner was a man. The kiss was broadcast on live television, and almost before the broadcast had finished, social media went into a frenzy.

“I’m sorry but that Michael Sam is no bueno [sic] for doing that on national tv,” tweeted former Super Bowl Champion Derrick Ward. “Man U [sic] got little kids looking at that draft. I can’t believe ESPN allowed that to happen,” he added later. His vitriolic comments were shared by others in the NFL, including Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones, who tweeted “horrible” and “OMG” after the kiss was aired. Jones was sent to “training for his recent comments on social media”, according to the Dolphins, but it is doubtful said “training” was more than a token gesture amid such a culture of homophobia.

Opprobrium wasn’t limited to the Twittersphere either, with Fox News running several pieces on whether the kiss was appropriate. Contributor Rick Sanchez decried the moment of intimacy between partners as “a publicity fuelled act” with “an element of going for shock value” – falling into the old homophobic trope that being LGBT+ is fine, so long as ‘normal people’ don’t have to see it.

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But alongside this tide of vitriol, there was a new wave of support. Sam was awarded the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage, presented annually to individuals whose contributions transcend sports. Even President Obama stepped in with a statement, saying that, “from the playing field to the corporate boardroom, LGBT Americans prove every day that you should be judged by what you do and not by who you are”.

To many Americans, the anger that Sam’s kiss generated was a remnant of a bygone era. One tweet that went viral after the controversy simply stated: “How do I explain Michael Sam to my kids? A man with TWO first names?” This echoed the sentiment that most Americans shared – that these attitudes ought to be ridiculed.

And this is the crucial difference between today’s world and that which Justin Fashanu came out to in 1990. Michael Sam’s NFL career was short-lived, and he never actually played a full season, transferring to the Canadian League after a year (becoming the first openly gay player in the CFL too). However, the importance of his illumination of the NFL’s entrenched homophobia cannot be overstated.

The answer to the question ‘could a UK footballer do the same thing?’ is, undoubtedly, yes. The tide in the UK has shifted so far in favour of the LGBT+ community in the past decade that, when a gay player does decide to come out, it will be a moment for celebration. Of course, it will not be without resistance, Twitter has a habit of encouraging the worst in people, but it is only by shining a light on trolls and making it clear that their views are no longer accepted that football can finally catch up with the rest of us