Tonight England will take on the Netherlands in an international friendly at Ajax's Amsterdam Arena, the fixture has been widely criticised and re-opened the club versus country debate. While I sympathise with the Premier League managers who have taken issue with such a match being scheduled only three days before the start of the new season, I still feel that tonight's game is of some value.
The England manager Fabio Capello will no doubt learn something from what unfolds in the Amsterdam Arena, even if it is more obvious to him than it is to the rest of us. More importantly, the game will at least give the younger members of the England squad greater international experience for the future.
If you cast your mind back to when England played Spain at the Bernabeu in 2004, you should remember the racist chanting that the Spanish crowd aimed at England's black players. The reaction to the abuse that Shaun Wright-Phillips, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Jermain Defoe and Jermaine Jenas all suffered was positively negative.
The vast majority of modern society realise that bigotry should no longer be tolerated, but unfortunately Spain's punishment from FIFA was not as harsh as it should have been. A fine was handed to the tune of €56,000, and this came on the back of Luis Aragonés training field conversation. When the then Spanish manager told Jose Antonio Reyes that he was "better than that black shit"- his then Arsenal team-mate Thierry Henry!
Still, on the whole the issue of racism in football has greatly improved. In the UK there is a real rarity that you would hear a racist remark, let alone a chant from any crowd in professional football. Football crowds today are far removed from the dark days of the mid 1980's, when the likes of John Barnes were subjected to despicable monkey chants and bananas being thrown onto the pitch.
Unfortunately football is still far from being all-encompassing in the modern era. When it comes to the question of sexuality, homophobia is fairly frequent at stadiums up and down the country. Homophobic remarks from the odd fan is far from uncommon, but football has never really done much to challenge that perception.
Perhaps it's because homophobia is born out of prejudices that have come to the fore in the last 50 years, it's a prejudice of more recent history. Despite that, it would be fair to say that in wider society homophobia is not so frequent any more either. The western world is reasonably liberal these days, it seems that it is in the sporting world that there lies a problem.
The late Justin Fashanu is always referred to when the topic of homosexual footballers come up, mostly because he is still the only major player to have come out during his career. The fact that this happened in 1990 and that there have been no other openly homosexual footballers since, suggests that there is still a taboo about being gay in football.
The world of sport is perceived to be about machoism, and to a certain extent this is true, but it would be foolish to assume that there are not many non-heterosexual professional footballers. Statistically this is highly unlikely, although it is fair to surmise that some good footballers who were homosexual may have been put off pursuing the sport for fear of ridicule.
Remember Robbie Fowler taunting Graeme Le Saux in a Premiership match in 1999, the striker waved his behind in the direction of Le Saux. The defender had apparently become a figure of fun due partly to having a higher level of education than usually associated with footballers. Fowler may well have thought he was 'just having a laugh', but the action was only the ignorant alter-ego to if he had waved a banana at a black player.
The study that prompts the debate was produced by a gay rights group called Stonewall. Their findings suggested from a poll of 2,005 people, that in the past five years 70% had heard homophobic abuse. I have to say that I'm not surprised, I have certainly heard it in the past couple of years and I know that it often goes without comment.
In a way the issue is like a relative that is hidden from view at a wedding, for fear of causing embarrassment. The reactions from the FA and the Premiership and Football League's spokespersons reflected this to an extent. All re-emphasised their reassurances that they tackle not only homophobia but all kinds of descriminatory acts.
This sounds fine, and it is just a minority of offenders, but it doesn't disguise that there is still much work to be done before it becomes as reviled as racism. The police action taken when Sol Cambell became a homophobic and racist target for Tottenham fans in 2008, was certainly a positive step. Teaching those sections of support that such behaviour is deplorable is the only way to tackle the issue, much like the Kick It Out campaign has done for racist actions.
The fact that there is not one openly gay footballer in the top four divisions of English football, alludes to there being a rooted fear of being outed as one. Only when there are will there be more uniform acceptance, educating people can do only so much.
In that event the few that do have a prejudice should soon learn that it makes no difference in the end. All that matters is if the player is any good and if he can do a job for your team- we are all equal. Without prejudice football has swearing, which is fine! After all, has there ever been a union better made for each other?!