The openly gay former youth national team player Marcus Urban remains hopeful that more professional footballers will openly embrace their sexual orientation, even after the failed group coming-out attempt. “There are gay couples in the Bundesliga, and they’re very nice, very good-looking. And perhaps one day the day will come when they come out,” said the former amateur player for Rot-Weiß Erfurt in an excerpt printed by Bild, a paid article, from the upcoming August 18 book Mensch Fußballstar by sports journalist Andreas Böni.
The 54-year-old Urban continues to view homophobic remarks as one of the reasons for ongoing hesitation. Take Kevin Behrens, for example. The former Wolfsburg player caused controversy after he refused to sign a rainbow-colored jersey and commented with a homophobic remark: “I won’t sign that kind of gay crap.” He later apologized.
Urban: “Many women roll their eyes”
Urban argues that it’s inconsistent that, unlike men, “being lesbian in women’s football is mostly no longer a problem.” “Many women roll their eyes and get bored with the topic. We want the same indifference from men. So that anyone can say: ‘This is my partner. This is our child,’” Urban said.
He notes that many players have already formed groups ranging from 20 to 40 people. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A lot are lone wolves, doing their own thing, and we don’t know about many of them yet,” the former player added.
Urban targets players’ agents
Regarding the reason for hiding, Urban wrote that fear often overcomes courage: “The fear comes from losing the job, losing the reputation. The people around the players, telling them not to come out, not to live freely, so they can keep earning money.” He criticized some agents for prioritizing their own interests.
Urban organized a group coming-out among professional football players last year. Yet on May 17, no one stepped forward. “In the end, no one dared. There are still far too many people in their circle who advised them against it,” Urban said. Among them were media lawyers, advisers, and family members who profit from the players’ money and fame and who transmit misperceived pseudo-care as well as their own fears onto the players.
Urban was a youth midfielder for Rot-Weiß Essen in the late 1980s and early 1990s and played for East Germany’s junior national team. He even earned an amateur contract in 1990—however, a fully professional career never materialized, because he left the sport in 1991 to escape the pressure of having to hide his homosexuality in football, as he revealed after coming out in 2007. He also described how stressful it was to play as a straight man—there were fake marriages or showpiece wives for official events. Today the 54-year-old works as a diversity and personal-development coach as well as an activist against homophobia in sports.
