Thomas Hitzlsperger I was part of that German team that was about to snatch Spain’s Euro Cup in 2008. A player who has developed a large part of his sporting career in Germany, Italy and England, and who decided to retire in 2013 after a host of injuries.
But the ex-footballer has not only had to deal with his own injuries, but He has also experienced a drama due to one of the great taboo topics in the world of football, homosexuality. A topic that he has talked about in his own documentary on Amazon Prime Video, The Last Taboo, and that he has also spoken about in an interview with the German newspaper Bild, where he assured at one point that my lawyer advised me against coming out.
Hitzlsperger is, at the moment, the only German footballer to make his homosexuality public. When asked if it is still a tab topicthe former player assures that yes, I think so. There is talk about it, but the players do not identify themselves as such. It is a taboo on the field and in the locker room, also because in Germany no active homosexual footballer is known.begins explaining.
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Luckily, society seems to continue evolving, although with small steps, because there are still problems in addressing the issue: It is about the main actors, the players, there is a problem. There are seven known homosexual professionals in the entire business. That’s a little small.
Not everyone around me thought I was good
It is always said: When will the first active player in one of the five best leagues come out with this? There is already one, with Jakub Jankto. He made it public once and little has been said about it since. That’s when you realize it didn’t have to be a big deal. Every time the topic came up, you realized that it was difficult, unpleasant, that you didn’t really want to do it.. I remember people talking about gays. Not everyone around me thought I was goodadds the former German player.
It was in 2010 when Hitzlsperger wanted to break with everything, but ended up repressing his feelings: When I moved to Rome in 2010, I realized that I could no longer suppress my feelings. Until then, I couldn’t imagine that I, of all people, could be gay. I suppressed it. I actually don’t regret anything. I would have been interested to see how my teammates and the public reacted. Unfortunately, I can no longer have that experience. But I’m fine now.
And it was a conversation with his lawyer that put him back when he was thinking of making his homosexuality public: He told me: Under no circumstances do you talk about that anymore! That will harm you. I went there to ask if I should do the coming out interview. An hour later, I left and knew: I won’t say anything else. That was in 2012, when I played for Wolfsburg.
