There were recently bans in Austria because of anti-gay slogans. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Nevertheless, Thomas Hitzlsperger says that as part of a minority you always have to defend yourself.
Is the rainbow bandage enough? Germany’s captain Manuel Neuer in the game against Hungary in June.
Laurens Lindhout / Soccrates / Getty
Would this have happened like this ten years ago? Last Monday, the disciplinary committee in Austria punished five players, an assistant coach and a managing director for shouting anti-gay slogans.
The report from Vienna is remarkable. Less because thoughtless footballers make anti-gay comments. This still happens, on football pitches, in fan corners, in the surrounding area. The report is noteworthy because the homophobic statements were sanctioned with penalties. And not just with symbolic fines, but with penalties that hurt the perpetrators and their club: with suspensions.
It’s been ten years since German national player Thomas Hitzlsperger decided, shortly after retiring as a professional, to go public and confess his homosexuality. Hitzlsperger has now written a book with Holger Gertz, author and reporter at the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, about the history and consequences of his coming out.
Could the verdict in Austria have a connection to Hitzlsperger’s history as the first well-known footballer to come out? Has history led to increased sensitivity towards discriminatory speech and gestures in recent years?
Hitzlsperger is not an activist
“The tone in which diversity is spoken and written about has become more natural and pleasant,” says Hitzlsperger, “but I don’t want to assess to what extent this change or the most recent ruling in Austria could have something to do with my story.”
Hitzlsperger is currently sitting in a taxi on the way to the airport in Munich. As co-owner of the oldest French restaurant in London, he has business to attend to in England. He is a TV expert, co-investor in the Danish second division club Aalborg BK, is currently giving interviews for the book publication and is negotiating with ARD to work as an expert again in Germany during the Euros, as in Qatar. Hitzlsperger laughs into the zoom camera: “I lead a contented, full life with the feeling of having normality.”
Does this normality also include the feeling after getting up that you are a role model as a champion against homophobia? “Not at all, I don’t see myself as an activist because I wasn’t looking for the topic, the topic found me,” says Hitzlsperger, “but when people talk to me and say that they like what I do or say, then I’m happy about that – it’s a great blessing to realize that I can perhaps help other people.”
The path to “normality” was not easy for the 41-year-old. It took courage to do this, not just once and not just in the hours on January 8, 2014, when Hitzlsperger paced through his apartment in Munich, knowing that the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” was about to report on someone’s first coming out German national player sent. Hitzlsperger’s coming out. “Back then I thought my step was difficult and strenuous – today I know that it wasn’t that difficult,” says Hitzlsperger.
“Huge Echo”: Thomas Hitzlsperger on ZDF 2014.
The book is called “tests of courage”, plural. This is important because the majority is an indication that Hitzlsperger is only partly concerned with his individual test of courage in coming out. But that his test of courage is one that other people can also pass. The book title also suggests that it always takes courage to stand up for your convictions. For beliefs and values that are important not only for the individual, but also for others.
As part of a minority, you have to defend yourself again and again and come forward so that you are not excluded, says Hitzlsperger. Because he doesn’t want to give up his belief that “even in football, you can remain a person who doesn’t care about everything,” as it says in a beautiful passage in the book.
Goal celebration in the German national team: Thomas Hitzlsperger in the 2-1 win against Slovakia in Hamburg in 2007.
Imago
“Everything” can mean a lot: homophobia, racism, exclusion, exploitation of migrant workers, “sportswashing,” the belief of officials and potentates that money can buy anything. All of this and much more are topics that Hitzlsperger addresses in his book. That sounds like a pamphlet and combat pamphlet, but thanks to the skill of the author Gertz, you also read the clever opposite: the gripping story of a former footballer who openly perceives his surroundings and is awake to his own feelings.
“For me it was not an option to continue living my life like that and remain silent – in the constant awareness that I would no longer be able to deceive a little here, fake something there and only tell half the truth there,” says Hitzlsperger, looking back on his playing life At the end of which he asked himself what life he wanted to lead after his retirement was approaching. Until then, football had dominated his life. Until feelings told him he might be gay.
Like the photo in the developer bath
It took time for the feelings to become a kind of certainty, “just as one only gradually recognizes the outlines and contours in a photo in the developer bath.” The book impressively describes how the certainty that he was gay during his time at Lazio in 2010 gave rise to a level of suffering from which Hitzlsperger wanted to escape. No more deceiving, no more silence. It took another four years of long discussions with journalists and consultants to get to this point.
As huge and noisy as the attention following his coming out was in 2014, ten years later the book deals with Hitzlsperger’s homosexuality cautiously and almost casually. The intention is clear: It is due to the big goal that it should no longer matter whether someone in a cabin is talking about a woman or a man when they are talking about their partner. Hitzlsperger was not only, but above all, a very good football player.
As the youngest of seven siblings, he already plays soccer on the meadow or against the wall of his parents’ farm in Forstinning, east of Munich. He was allowed to go to Bayern, became a professional, moved to England at the age of 18 and was given the honorary name “The Hammer” at Aston Villa because of his powerful shot. He becomes a national player, shoots VfB Stuttgart to the championship in 2007, becomes captain in the club and occasionally in the national team.
Looking forward to the European Championships in Germany
This is told wonderfully easily and quickly and shows how sexual orientation, skin color and all the other difficult questions that overload and enlarge football gradually come into Hitzlsperger’s perception like “the photo in the development bathroom”. In the meantime, clear attitudes have emerged. At the end of the book, Hitzlsperger looks forward to the upcoming European Championships in Germany as an opportunity “for this despondent country to finally find its way out of this paralysis of anger and bitterness. . . at least for a few weeks.”
At least for a few weeks? There are the rainbow flags in the stadiums, the captain’s armbands, and many large clubs and associations that oppose discrimination and speak out for diversity. But has things gotten better for athletes who suffer, doubt and despair because of their sexual orientation, skin color or origin?
In May 1998, English footballer Justin Fashanu hanged himself with an electric cable after coming out eight years earlier and no longer being able to bear his life following a hounding in the media and the football industry. In August 2022, the then Lucerne goalie Marius Müller paid a fine of 2,000 francs after he said in a TV interview that “the gay behavior” of his teammates was annoying him. A few years ago, Benjamin Kololli thought that homosexual players should better keep their attraction to themselves. When he recently got a contract with FC Basel, he had to apologize after fan protests.
There is a need for “new narratives and other stories,” says Hitzlsperger. This takes courage, always courage. Guido Burgstaller, Marco Grüll, former YB player Thorsten Schick, Maximilian Hofmann and Niklas Hedl are the names of the Rapid Vienna players who are serving their sentences.
Thomas Hitzlsperger, with Holger Gertz. Tests of courage. Cologne 2024.
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