IN the same week that Hibernian chief executive Leeann Dempster claimed Scottish football was ready to welcome its first publicly gay male player came a reminder that as a nation we are perhaps not quite as enlightened as we would like to think.

The announcement that Stagecoach South East would be sponsoring this year’s Turner Prize was met with shocked disdain by many in the art world given the bus operator’s chairman, Brian Souter, had previously donated £1m to a campaign to prevent homosexuality being taught in Scottish schools. Charlotte Prodger had won last year’s prize on the back of a film she produced about “queer identity” and coming out in rural Scotland, making the choice of sponsor something of a mis-step by the organisers to say the least. It was little surprise when they made a U-turn just a day later.

Almost two decades have now passed since Souter bankrolled the Keep the Clause campaign but it is difficult to state with any confidence that Scottish society has advanced demonstrably in its attitude towards gay issues in the intervening period. Dempster is correct when she says Scottish football should be ready for its first openly gay male player but was perhaps ambitious or naive when she hoped that our game would be “sufficiently tolerant and progressive to welcome a current player coming out”.

Historic milestones tell us otherwise. You only need to look back at the racist abuse Mark Walters received as one of the first black players to play in Scottish football, or the level of opprobrium that met Maurice Johnston, the first high-profile Roman Catholic and former Celtic player to sign for Rangers, to see that benign acceptance hasn’t tended to be the first reaction to anything different to the norm.

Still, we will never know for sure until it happens. Beyond the brief stint of Justin Fashanu at first Airdrie and then Hearts in 1993, no publicly gay male footballer has played at any level of senior Scottish football. In fact, throughout Britain or even Europe, there is scarcely a recorded episode of an “out” homosexual player featuring on the professional stage.

As Dempster noted, those numbers don’t add up. If one in 10 people are thought to be gay, then the law of averages tells us there must be thousands of professional players unwilling or unable to reveal their sexuality for fear of the reaction they might get. In an era when people in all other walks of life can announce they are gay with barely a blinking of an eyelid, it is to football’s shame that it is still portrayed as one of the last bastions of intolerance where people still have to keep their true identity to themselves.

PFA Scotland chief executive Fraser Wishart believes any player wishing to come out would receive a “strong level of support” from team-mates and other professionals and he is almost certainly correct. That feeling of comradeship and togetherness is vital in any team sport and, beyond the inevitable mickey-taking, you suspect most players wouldn’t hugely care about a colleague’s sexual persuasion as long as they were contributing to the progress of the side.

The problem, then, is not that a gay footballer wouldn’t be accepted by their peers but that whoever was bold enough to be the first to break that taboo would be subject to such a level of intensive focus and scrutiny from all around the world that it would prove overwhelming to almost anyone forced to carry that burden. That level of distraction and spotlight would probably annoy team-mates and managers more than whether a player would rather date another man than a woman.

Realistically, then, progress will need to be achieved incrementally. Thomas Hitzlsperger, the former German international, waited until he had finished playing before coming out and is now an articulate spokesman on LGBT issues and promoting inclusiveness in sport.

Nicknamed The Hammer due to his thunder blast of a shot, Hitzlsperger also helped obliterate the hoary old stereotype that homosexuals are somehow weaker or less masculine than their straight colleagues.

Perhaps it may need a similar pioneering figure here in Scotland. Were a recently-retired footballer to decide to make it known they were gay, it would hopefully prompt a grown-up discussion on the matter free from the risk that the player involved wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his football commitments due to the media brouhaha and the inevitable abuse from the terraces that would arise as a result.

Whoever is brave enough to be the first to make that stance – and you can understand why most couldn’t be bothered with the hassle – would help pave the way for the first active player to feel comfortable talking about it which in turn ought to hopefully reset the environment so it becomes a matter barely worth commenting on. Walters and Johnston may have been the unwitting guinea pigs in their own personal scenarios but, 30 years on, they have helped create a climate where a player’s race or religion no longer registers as anything remarkable.

Sexuality, then, remains the last issue to be conquered. Dempster, who has been in a civil partnership for 12 years, has been candid and bold to bring this topic back in to the public domain. It remains to be seen, however, whether there is a role model somewhere willing to take that next step.