Premier League bosses have issued a mealy-mouthed response to a Stonewall campaign encouraging England's multimillionaire players to don rainbow-coloured laces to highlight homophobia in the game.

A spokesman said the league was leaving it to "individual clubs and players" to decide whether to tie up their boots with the laces in games this weekend.

But there was a whiff of sour grapes to his comments, which suggested that it was more interested in commercial implications than the value of the initiative itself.

Complaining that the Premier League had not been approached by the Right Behind Gay Footballers campaign, he said: "The underlying message behind this campaign is a good one.

"However, we were not consulted.

"Had we been involved earlier in the process we could have worked with Stonewall to consider things like boot deals, the use of particular betting partners, and other issues."

Instead gay rights campaign Stonewall have linked up with bookmakers Paddy Power to launch the campaign, which has seen players at all 92 English league clubs and 42 Scottish sides asked to wear the laces this Saturday and Sunday.

The initiative is the latest to highlight the glaring absence of a single openly homosexual footballer at any of the nations' professional sides.

Stonewall says that it is statistically impossible that there are no gay men among the 5,000 registered league players.

The only English player to ever come out publicly was former England Under-21 international Justin Fashanu in 1990.

He committed suicide eight years later aged 37.

Michael Jones