When I think back to my career, I have clear recollections of intimidation at times by what team-mates have said, maybe unwittingly, not knowing my orientation.

But I was too scared at the time when I was playing to open up and can still entirely respect that position in others.

Over a decade on, yes I would love to have that conversation, and ask what is the problem, and maybe help them by explaining what this means.

Some might like it, others not. At the end of the day, we are here to play football with the obligation to promote initiatives that at times we cannot have an open say on. Players may sometimes feel like they are being dictated to outside what they started out to achieve in a playing career.

The armband allows an element of personal interpretation – maybe that is part of the problem as people look at it differently.

In this case it has opened up the highly sensitive topic of religion, something that for so long many – if not most – fans and players would say should not be a factor in sport, along with politics.

But overall, we have set such high standards for our football players.

Companies around world use the rainbow colours, but as we know not in every territory, so this is not a football-centric issue.

Are footballers being highlighted in a way corporations are not?

Scrutiny is one thing, education and change another – and what I believe every case such as this should be informing and evolving.