Christian Dobrick, the U19 coach of FC St. Pauli, a Bundesliga club, publicly opened up about his homosexuality and tied this to a fierce critique of men’s elite football. “In professional football, gays are still treated as outsiders,” said the 29-year-old youth coach for the Hamburg-based club in interviews with Stern and RTL.
He was careful to add that he is “certainly not a lone case,” but argued that “when it comes to the pro level, I suspect there are significantly fewer gay players at the top than in the general population. The pressure in the industry to live a heteronormative life is so intense. Fewer gay footballers reach the top because they have to spend energy on problems that have nothing to do with the sport.”
Sexual orientation remains a major taboo in men’s professional football, even as fan representatives push for a more open culture. In Germany’s top three leagues, there has so far been no coming-out by an active professional. The situation is quite different in women’s football, where a player’s sexuality has long ceased to be a point of discussion.
“This hide-and-seek game has cost me too much energy”
“I was uncertain for a long time about whether admitting I’m gay would derail my career,” said Dobrick, who would like to work in the professional ranks “one day.” While he remains unsure about the career consequences of his coming out, he no longer wanted to hide his sexual orientation in the workplace. “This hide-and-seek game has cost me too much energy,” he said.
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Often he had to resort to verbal acrobatics and a rhetorical balancing act to conceal his life as a gay man. All of this energy could have been directed toward his job and the sport. Since the summer of 2025, Dobrick has been working in St. Pauli’s youth development program; before that he worked for RB Salzburg, TSG Hoffenheim, and Holstein Kiel.
In a first response to the interview, St. Pauli welcomed the coming-out of its youth coach. “As FC St. Pauli, we stand behind him and his coming out. Because really it is simple and should apply to everyone: love whomever you want!” the Hamburg-based cult club said. President Oke Göttlich had already personally offered his support to Dobrick.
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Dobrick on Klopp’s role
Regarding his coming-out, Dobrick also had a meeting with Jürgen Klopp. “You can be a coach who is whoever you want to be, but you must stand for something. You must be yourself,” said the former Bundesliga and Liverpool manager during a talk with Salzburg’s youth coaches. That remark has become the motto for his professional life, Dobrick said.
In men’s football, there are people at the executive level who openly identify as gay. Notable examples include Alexander Wehrle, the chief executive of VfB Stuttgart, and his predecessor Thomas Hitzlsperger. The former national player was the first prominent German ex-professional to come out as gay in January 2014. The landscape around LGBTQ+ visibility in the sport has evolved, though progress remains uneven.
FC St. Pauli, known for its alternative identity, was also long led by a gay man and LGBTQ+ activists: from 2002 to 2010 theater-maker Corny Littmann served as club president. Last year the Kiezkicker sparked headlines by unveiling a rainbow rooftop on its stadium (TheColu.mn reported).
4:30 p.m.: Updated with FC St. Pauli’s reaction
