Gay escort hired by premiership footballer. It’s a tagline which makes you read on, not only because it is gossip column gold but also that reading such a story would be impossible.

Apparently, there are no gay premiership footballers. Not since the former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger retired – and he only came out once he had quit.

But the barriers between being gay and being in football are falling.

Gay man, keen football fan and playwright Rob Ward cites a recent move by Liverpool FC, which issued a letter to all season ticket holders to say it is clamping down on prejudice and discrimination in the stands. The letter mentioned racism, sexism and homophobia.

“They were acknowledging that level of abuse,” says Ward. “It seems simple for liberal-minded people but that is a big step for a club, making that kind of statement.”

Ward, an Everton fan and Liverpudlian, points to his team wearing rainbow laces in a game as part of a campaign fronted by Joey Barton by equality lobby group Stonewall. Despite its cringy tagline, “I’m right behind gay footballers”.

And two months ago Sussex Police prosecuted Colin Kazim-Richards for making obscene gestures and simulating having gay sex with Wayne Bridge at a game at The Amex.

Speaking outside court, PC Darren Balkham, football liaison officer for Sussex Police and Brighton and Hove Albion, said: “There is banter in football and quite rightly because some of the best comedians are on the terraces at football, but in this case he stepped over that line.

“We are now where racism in football was 20 years ago, but I do not think it is going to take us 20 years to catch up with society as it is today.”

Ward, whose award-winning Away From Home one-man play is currently showing in Brighton Fringe, agrees. He says there is something in the zeitgeist.

The same-sex marriage bill, which came into force in March, helped.

A Channel 4 Dispatches programme aired in March, looking at homophobic and racist abuse at English football grounds including abuse directed at Brighton and Hove Albion fans, stirred debate further.

Though Liz Costa, vice-chairwoman of the Albion supporters club, called it misleading.

“The world is full of bigots so we will always get this kind of abuse, but it has improved no end.

“We used to get it every single game. This season I can probably count the incidents on one hand.”

Ward says reading in the news about Albion fans being subjected to homophobic taunts at Leeds United made him realise “it’s got to that stage where you feel, ‘When is something going to be done about this?”.

His contribution, in part inspired by his coming out and because he’d had enough of seeing racists kicked out of football grounds but not homophobes, is directed by co-writer Martin Jameson (Emmerdale, Casualty, The Bill).

Ward plays Kyle, a young male prostitute who doesn’t like to work Saturdays but makes an exception after a call from a footballer who has just scored against the team he supports.

“Their relationship develops and the play asks how can it be sustained within the culture of football?”

It also looks at Kyle’s choices, which often lead him to trouble.

“He is quite gobby. Martin always describes him as an attack dog.”

Middle ground Ward admits he lacked role models in the gay community as a young man and wants it rectified.

“The ones I saw on TV were camp and flamboyant and I couldn’t relate to that.

“I felt I can’t be gay because I am into football but I can’t be into football because I am gay.

It felt like strange middle ground. That is why it took me so long to accept who I was.”

He believes the problem is with the Football Association and the top clubs concentrating on finance rather than human rights.

Still, Peter Clayton, who chairs the FA’s “Homophobia In Football” working group, argued that clubs prevent players from “coming out” as footballers have an increasing commercial market value which may be damaged.

“I think there’s some real truth in that – and it goes back to Thomas Hitzlsperger coming out after retiring. “Could you market a footballer in Iran, or in part of Africa, if he was openly gay?

“What we are asking for is a shift in mentality.

If football is going be such a global body then it needs to realise we are talking about basic human rights, regardless of religion and culture, to express who you are.”

Away From Home at The Marlborough Theatre, Princes Street, Brighton, until May 26,  starts 7.30pm, tickets £12. Call 01273 917272