Real progress will be referring to Jake as a footballer only

THE most heartening conversation of the week was the one between Blackpool team-mates Jake Daniels and Marvin Ekpiteta. After Daniels revealed himself as the country’s first openly gay men’s professional footballer, someone with too much time and not enough brains went digging in Ekpiteta’s social media history and discovered some homophobic content from when he was 17.

From here the story could have headed south quickly. A day to savour could have turned in to something else altogether.

But, instead, the two men sorted it out between them. Ekpiteta apologised sincerely and Daniels was happy enough with that.

‘What you said 10 years ago doesn’t define the man you are today,’ said Daniels on Twitter.

‘I am proud to be your team-mate. We are all moving football forwards together.’

There are two issues at play here. The first is that concerning historical social media posts.

The FA are looking into what Ekpiteta said and that seems wrong, sad and depressing but also understandable at the same time.

For sure I wouldn’t want anybody to have historical access to some of the things I thought and said when I was a teenager. Nobody is properly formed as an individual when they are just out of school and, as such, is it right to be judged some 10 or so years later?

Equally, if the FA choose to ignore such things, where does the governing body choose to draw the line? Ten years? Five years? Two years? It’s a desperately difficult topic for them. More widely and more encouragingly, Daniels and Ekpiteta have shown us all the way to move forward when it comes to the matter of homosexuality in football. To these two players, these things simply do not matter. They are team-mates and that’s the only tag they care about.

For too long the media and some football supporters have spoken with too much relish about the day a male player would finally come out. I have always had considerably less interest. If we are ever truly able to say that the professional game is a sport for everyone then we really must accept that these things are not relevant. Are we there yet? Maybe not. Daniels has done a wonderful thing, both for himself and for any other young gay player out there who may previously have wondered if professional football was for him or her. In one week, the young forward and his football club have advanced the issue enormously. It would be stupid to pretend it’s not a significant moment.

But what happens now is just as important.

Daniels must now be allowed to return to the role he occupied before, that of a largely anonymous young player of promise.

So in terms of his sport, Daniels is just another player who may or not make it. He should now be left to get on with it.

From this point on, he is Jake Daniels once again. He should not be persistently referred to as football’s first openly gay footballer for that would single him out and not be progress at all. It would be the opposite.

In the Blackpool dressing room, Jake is just Jake and, not for the first time over the last seven days, we should all take our lead from there.