• Rugby joins FA and Premier League in ditching Stonewall and Rainbow Laces
•  Premiership Rugby to find new charity partner and joins football authorities with plans to launch their own LGBTQ+ campaigns

Rugby has joined football in severing ties with Stonewall and the charity’s Rainbow Laces campaign.

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It can be revealed that Premiership Rugby has stopped promoting the campaign and the Football Association has ended its partnership with the charity as both plan to launch new LGBTQ+ inclusion initiatives.

Telegraph Sport reported on Thursday how the Premier League had terminated its own eight-year partnership with Stonewall and had ditched rainbow armbands.

The world’s richest league plans to launch a new campaign to coincide with February’s LGBTQ+ History Month.

The FA is said to have ended its own partnership with Stonewall as part of a wider move away from single campaign moments that have had a questionable impact on the fight against bigotry within football.

Telegraph Sport has been told Premiership Rugby is close to naming a charity partner, with which it will work on future LGBTQ+ initiatives.

News that the Premier League had terminated its own partnership with Stonewall emerged on the same day Premier League captains agreed for players to continue taking the knee this season.

The decisions over two symbols which have become plagued by controversy were made during a meeting of the 20 club captains.

The Premier League had already ended an eight-year partnership with Stonewall, which launched its Rainbow Laces campaign in 2013.

Telegraph Sport has been told the decision was taken amid the growth of in-house expertise within the league and its clubs.

The Premier League, FA and Premiership Rugby have become the latest major organisations to sever ties with Stonewall amid its advocacy for gender ideology that was undermined by this year’s Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman under the Equality Act.

The FA responded to that ruling by banning transgender women from women’s football, a decision the charity denounced for being made “too soon, before the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling has been worked through by lawyers and politicians or before statutory guidance has been issued”.

It added: “It is incredibly disappointing as several of them have been long-term and vocal supporters of our Rainbow Laces campaign, advocating for inclusion in sport for all ages and at all levels.”

The Premier League’s ditching of rainbow armbands comes eight months after Marc Guehi, the England defender, Crystal Palace captain and devout Christian, wrote “I love Jesus” and “Jesus loves you” on his in consecutive matches.

Guehi did so in breach of FA kit rules and was issued with a reminder of his responsibility to follow them.

Ipswich Town captain and Muslim Sam Morsy also refused to wear a rainbow armband during the same period but received no such reminder, which saw the FA accused of creating a “two-tier m

Club captains agreed on Thursday that the armband would no longer be used to promote specific campaigns and would feature only the Premier League logo.

A Stonewall spokesperson said: “Rainbow Laces has helped improve LGBTQ+ inclusion, acceptance and participation in sport at all levels, whether player, participant or fan. Rainbow Laces has helped to significantly shift the dial and while it can still prove difficult for elite players themselves to be openly LGBTQ+ on the pitch, there are now some role models; at the grass-roots level it is easier to participate and as a fan the LGBTQ+ community has increasingly felt more accepted.

“Over the years, Rainbow Laces has benefitted from a wide range of partners with a natural ebb and flow reflecting cultural and sporting changes. More recently the Women’s Super League has taken up the mantle as the women’s game has grown – enabling Rainbow Laces to reach more diverse audiences. Increasingly, the younger generation – where one in 10 identify as LGBTQ+ – are focusing on fitness, health and mental wellbeing. Enabling LGBTQ+ inclusion and participation in sport remains vital; Rainbow Laces and its sporting partners will remain at the centre of those efforts in the years to come.”