Referring to German sources, Sport Bible wrote that May 17 will be the big coming out day in the Bundesliga. According to the plans, homosexual players, coaches, referees and other officials in German professional football can come out en masse at the same time. A revolution by gay footballers would be unprecedented.
The large-scale project, which is supported by several Bundesliga clubs, was launched by Marcus Urban, whose organization has ties to gay players in German football. Urban himself was a footballer, in the 1980s and ’90s he was a member of the second division Rot-Weiß Erfurt, and in 1994 he revealed his homosexuality to his family, and in 2007 he spoke about it publicly.
“May 17 is an offer, an opportunity,” Urban is quoted in the article, who says that intensive communication is currently taking place with the players who would participate in the joint coming out. The group coming out campaign is called Sports Free, and in the coming weeks, an online interface may be created on which those involved can publicly acknowledge their homosexuality.
Allegedly, along with Borussia Dortmund, who reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, and his club, Freiburg, his team, Union Berlin and other German teams (St. Pauli, Stuttgart) also financially support the project.
In Germany, there have already been efforts to sensitize the football environment to the acceptance of otherness, as a sign of this, the team captain’s armband has become rainbow colored at several Bundesliga clubs. It was a memorable case that at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the captain of the German national team, Manuel Neuer, would have insisted on the rainbow One Love armband, but FIFA deemed it a political expression and banned it, so the German players protested before their first group game and kept their mouths shut.
Hitzlsperger’s coming out did not bring the expected breakthrough
Despite the rainbow aspirations, the question of homosexuality among male football players is still taboo in Germany. In 2010, the former manager of Werder Bremen and Schalke, Rudi Assauer, made a controversial statement on the subject:
“If a player came up to me saying he’s gay, I’d tell him he’s showing his courage.” But I would also add that you should find something else to do. Simply because they would end up being mocked by their fellow players and the spectators in the stands, they should be protected from witch-hunting.
Many expected Thomas Hitzlsperger’s coming out shortly after his retirement in January 2014 to be a breakthrough. To this day, he is the best-known footballer who openly accepted his homosexuality, as he was a member of the German national team 52 times, has a European silver medal and a World Cup bronze medal, played in clubs such as Aston Villa in the Premier League, West Ham United and Everton, and in the Bundesliga he was a champion with Stuttgart. But in reality, the appearance of Hitzlsperger did not bring much change either, his example was not followed en masse at the highest level.
Now, however, they promise that the hide-and-seek in the Bundesliga can end on May 17.
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Tags: revolution gay football players Bundesliga mass coming organized
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