Matthias Kaelberer. Sexuality and Culture. Volume 24, Issue 3, June 2020.
German society and even German soccer have become more acceptant of the idea of inclusive masculinities. Hyper-masculinity is no longer the only paradigm dominating discourses on soccer. Other forms of masculinities have become more accepted in the German public and its soccer community. Nevertheless, two major aspects of homophobia remain part of the German soccer scene. First, homophobic epithets and chants continue to represent a major ingredient of the climate in soccer stadiums. Second, there is an absence of openly homosexual top-level soccer players. So far, no active players in top division German soccer have come out as gay. What explains this contrast between the acceptance of inclusive masculinities and the continued homophobia of the game? This paper analyses discourses on masculinity, homosexuality and homophobia in German professional soccer in order to address this puzzle.
German soccer has been going through a long period of tension between the forces of commercialization and efforts to uphold the traditions of the game. Fans, clubs, soccer organizations, sponsors and the media have fought over various aspects of the game, with ardent fans often attempting to defend traditions, business interests seeking the commercialization of the game, and clubs serving as the intermediary between those forces. These battles over time have continuously produced new, fragile equilibria over such issues as playing times, sponsorship, club membership, team colors and symbols, stadium seating, or stadium naming rights-to list just a few. These new equilibria were possible because both the tradition of the game and the forces of commercialization had strong constituencies and advocacy groups (see: Merkel 2012).
I contend in this paper that, unlike the discourses mentioned above in which tradition and commercialization stand in conflict, the discourses around homophobia and homosexuality-very much like those on gender and sexism-are characterized by a situation in which tradition and commercialization pull soccer into the same direction. The increasing commercialization of the game and the efforts of safeguarding the tradition of the game reinforce each other. There simply are no large constituencies and advocacy groups that would have strong interests in eradicating homophobia. Efforts to uphold the traditions of a “manly” game and the potential commercial “punishment” of openly gay players help in maintaining the dominance of heterosexual masculinity in the game.
This paper addresses the issue of homosexuality and homophobia in German soccer in three steps. The first section focuses on soccer as a sphere of hegemonic masculinity and deals with soccer’s specific “order of touch.” The second section reviews broader historical trends that have emerged in German discourses on soccer and homosexuality. The third section presents a case study of the public discourse that emerged after the public coming-out of Thomas Hitzlsperger-so far, the most prominent former German soccer player to have done so.
Soccer as a Sphere of Hegemonic Masculinity
One obvious starting point to talk about soccer and masculinity is the now well-established notion in the social science literature that gender is not a biological fact but rather a social construction (Butler 1990). Gender is performed daily in numerous social interactions and soccer is a sphere of life that is particularly strongly gendered. More specifically, soccer offers a space for the performance of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a configuration of gender practices that legitimizes the dominance of men and the subordination of women and lesser forms of masculinity-including homosexual men (Connell 2005). Soccer is not based on gender-neutral criteria, but rather reflects masculine codes like strength, power and competition. In addition, the expression of masculinity in soccer has been more resistant to change than in most other areas of German society. According to polls carried out by the Anti-Discrimination Office of the German Federal Government in 2017, 83% of Germans supported same-sex marriage, and over 75% of the population supported adoption rights for same-sex couples (Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes 2017).
Soccer is one of the last refuges for the open and unmitigated display of one’s manhood. While the German Soccer Association (DFB) has made significant progress in fighting racism, homophobia and sexism remain largely unchallenged forms of discrimination in the realm of soccer. Although German society in general has moved towards greater acceptance of homosexuality, soccer still tolerates overt and explicit homophobia. Within soccer, overt homophobia-most importantly, in the form of shouting or chanting explicit slurs-is still often left uncontested. Using labels like Schwabenschwuchtel (Swabian faggot), Weicheier (sissies), Arschficker (ass fickers), or Warmduscher (literally “warm showerer,” but probably best translated as wimp) to address the other team are common practices in the stands. Club officials have often been unable to clamp down on these utterances, and fans, for the most part cannot figure out how to self-police themselves. This contrast between society and soccer, makes the social domain of soccer not so much a representation of society, but rather turns it into one of the last preserves of uninhibited and unquestioned masculinity.
The image of the soccer stadium as one of the last preserves of masculinity is revealing in a number of ways. As a preserve, the stadium becomes a retreat and a shelter for an archaic and outdated notion of manhood. As Almut Sülzle (2005) points out, the vision of the stadium as a preserve stands in contrast to descriptions of soccer as a male bastion or a male domain. The concept of the male domain or bastion implies men standing firmly in the center of their world, defending themselves heroically against attacks from the outside-among them women and other unmanly elements. A preserve, on the other hand, is an artificially created, limited place in which a species needs to be protected against extinction. Clearly the idea of the preserve underscores that the types of masculinity that prevail in the soccer stadium increasingly diverge from the dominant forms of masculinity in the rest of society. The notion of the stadium as a last male preserve points to the threat of extinction that the kind of stadium masculinity faces in the rest of society. In “real” life, even the most ardent fans do not exhibit the boorish and loud behavior that they do in the stadium fan sections.
Soccer is socially constructed as an exclusively male realm. This does not reflect biological differences, but rather it is the consequence of meaning that is associated with soccer. Traditionally, this social construction of soccer often emphasized hyper-masculine and aggressive behaviors. As Cashmore and Cleland (2011: 423) point out, “football appears to valorize certain qualities associated with men, especially strength and aggression, but also a stoic impermeability to pain and a tendency to sacrifice personal gains for the betterment of the team.” While, as I will describe in the next section, the concept of masculinity continues to soften and the recognition of multiple masculinities keeps strengthening in the realm of sports, media coverage often persists in emphasizing traditional masculinity. In any case, discourses in soccer exclude homosexuality.
The construction of soccer as a male preserve involves fencing it off from women and homosexual men. This obviously does not happen in the literal sense. Women have been increasingly part of the game at least since the 1990s, both as fans and as players. Similarly, one can safely assume that homosexual men are among the fans and the players of the game. Instead, the fencing off process happens first of all through a very rigid de-sexualization of the game. The problem here is that soccer is one of the most bodily-touch intensive systems in which men are engaged. This necessitates pushing sexual identity and sexual orientation into an area one cannot discuss in soccer. Soccer distinguishes clearly between corporeality and sexuality.
With that de-sexualization of soccer comes a powerful regulation of what is allowed-and, even more importantly, what is allowed where. Deep embraces, congratulatory patting, openly sobbing, jumping into each other’s bodies, even kissing among players and fans are welcome activities on the soccer field and in the stands. Clearly, players and fans demonstrate a bodily and emotional closeness to each other. Those things, however, are forbidden outside the stadiums. The emotions shown in the stadium are unmanly when they happen outside the soccer context.
The types of embraces one can witness on the soccer field and in the stands would clearly come across as homoerotic outside of the stadium. Soccer’s “order of touch” (Müller 2009: 160) simultaneously demands and forbids intimacy. Intimate celebrations after a goal or after winning a game make the event more fun to watch. But these moments of intimacy must stop outside the soccer stadium. This emphasizes that the contact is part of the game, and has absolutely no further meaning. In essence, soccer’s “order of touch” creates a system of compulsive heterosexuality. Even with the factual presence of women and homosexual men, soccer is constructed as an exclusively masculine and, by definition, heterosexual realm.
The patriarchal order outside of the last male preserve of soccer forbids men to get emotional. In soccer, however, men can act out their passions and emotions-they can cry, hug, cuddle and even kiss fellow men. In most other societal contexts, these types of activities and emotions would appear weak and homoerotic. Thus, in order to prevent any misinterpretation, the realm of soccer has to be heterosexual by definition. The heterosexuality of soccer is unquestioned and-from the outset-homosexuality does not exist as a topic. Heterosexuality has to be the social norm, because if there were homosexual players in the stadium, they could no longer hug each other safely. Soccer defines the community as heterosexual and the rituals they are engaging in as nonsexual.
In this sense, soccer ironically offers the freedom for players and fans, to move between genders or to act in ways that could be interpreted as genderfluid. Soccer allows men to appear manly even while they wear girls’ hairbands, earrings and women’s underwear (Sülzle 2005: 44). Most famously, David Beckham publicly acknowledged that he liked to wear his wife’s underwear-without ever having his manhood called into doubt. Men in soccer stadiums can show care for other “tough guys” without appearing effeminate, and male fans in the stands will be seen as masculine even if their bodies do not exhibit the muscularity associated with sporting activity but rather show the signs of too much beer consumption. Simply being part of the group in the stadium defines a male spectator as masculine.
Trends in German Discourses on Soccer and Homosexuality
The association of soccer with hyper-masculinity historically goes back to the very beginning of the game. Soccer emerged during the second industrial revolution with its stricter separation of the “male” world of industrial work and the “female” world of the home. This separation meant that boys spent more time surrounded by women, and sport became a way to avoid a feminization of boys, whose fathers were largely absent from their lives. Soccer also taught values useful for industrial labor, such as discipline and hard work. Moreover, soccer had beneficial effects from the perspective of the military, as it facilitated physical strength and fitness. With all of these underlying social forces, soccer easily became associated with masculine values such as power, strength, speed, and muscularity. Soccer serves as an area in which boys and men recognize and validate each other as “true” men.
So far, no active player in top division German soccer has come out as gay. Players have come out only after the end of their playing career-most prominently in 2014 the former German national team player Thomas Hitzlsperger. I will analyze the public discourse that developed in response to Hitzlsperger’s coming-out in the next section of this paper. Despite the strong public support that Hitzlsperger received, I believe that his case underscores why the coming-out of active soccer players during their playing career is still very unlikely in the near future. The discourse on Hitzlsperger also demonstrates why homophobia remains a significant part of the game.
Beyond the issue of coming-out, the other problem that persists in German soccer is the pervasiveness of homophobic (and sexist) chants and yelled insults among the fans in the stands. Insults such as a “gay kick” or a “gay referee” usually refer to weaknesses among the participants. These chants and insults are usually not meant to directly discriminate against actual homosexuals. Rather, they are part of ritualized speech to provoke and symbolically emasculate players from the opposing team or unpopular referees. They are, thus, an integral part of the game. Indeed, those yelling homophobic insults do not recognize them as discrimination and are incapable of critically questioning their own behavior. They view them as “good-humored banter” (Cashmore and Cleland 2011: 420). Within the context of soccer, it is “normal” to call the opposing players “gay.” For the fans, there exists a strict separation between what is permissible in the stadiums and what can be sanctioned outside of them. However, even if the chants and insults are not meant to directly discriminate against actual homosexuals, the pervasiveness of these homophobic chants and yelled insults underscores the constraints gay men face in soccer.
Overall, the German Soccer Association (DFB) has been more successful and consistent when it comes to combatting racism than in dealing with sexism and homophobia. First of all, the DFB started to take the issue of homophobia seriously only in 2007 (Sabisch 2014). Nevertheless, there are few sanctions against homophobia and sexism in German soccer. In addition, the soccer association has been far more lenient in its punishment of the expression of homophobia and sexism in the stadiums than of openly racist acts. In 2007, the Schalke 04 player Gerald Asamoah, who is Afro-German, accused Borussia Dortmund‘s goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller of having called him a “black pig” (“Du schwarzes Schwein”). During the DFB investigation, Weidenfeller admitted insulting Asamoah, but denied having called him a “black pig.” Instead, he supposedly called him a “gay pig” (“Du schwules Schwein”). Weidenfeller received a 3-game suspension for the homophobic insult. For the racist slur, his suspension would have been twice as long-six games (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2007). Technically, the DFB distinguished here between an insult and discrimination. According to the statutes of the DFB, discrimination includes offenses on the basis of race, skin color, language, religion, and heritage-but not gender or sexual orientation. Thus homophobia according to the DFB can only rise to the level of insult but not discrimination.
In addition to the modest punishment for homophobic incidents, DFB officials often react in stereotypically defensive fashion to any suggestions that there might be homosexual players on the national team. Famously, the German national team manager Oliver Bierhoff reacted angrily and personally offended when the German TV crime series Tatort featured a fictitious gay player on the national team in its 2011 episode “Mord in der ersten Liga” because the show had “attacked his family-his family of the national team” (Degele 2013: 106). Instead of viewing the crime show as a fabricated popular culture phenomenon, Bierhoff took it seriously and suggested that the national team would lose all the fun of its work, “if we have to defend ourselves against unfounded rumors. In the national team we will now have to fundamentally think through how to deal with those things, so that we are not defenseless against rumors and false insinuations of any kind.”
Another, even worse, gut-level stereotypical reaction within the German soccer scene is the frequent association of homosexuality and pedophilia. In a famous, and widely discussed incident in 2008, the coach of Cologne’s Bundesliga team 1. FC Köln, Christoph Daum, criticized efforts by then-DFB President Theo Zwanziger to make soccer more welcoming to homosexuals. In a television interview, Daum justified his skepticism of the DFB initiative with reference to the soccer association’s obligation to protect children and adolescents: “We owe a great responsibility to the young people that have been entrusted to us.. I would put the protection of children above any liberalization” (Walther-Ahrens 2011: 142).
Similarly, when Dirk Leibfried and Andreas Erb (2011: 55-74) sent a survey about how professional soccer clubs dealt with the subject of homosexuality and homophobia to all public relations offices of the 36 first and second division clubs, only 12-one-third-of them bothered to answer. And only 4 of those 12 clubs went beyond pro forma statements by the clubs’ public relations offices, with leading club officials and team captains answering questions. Overall, Leibfried and Erb’s survey revealed that German soccer clubs were still reluctant to engage with the subject of homosexuality and homophobia, and even those willing to answer the survey struggled mightily with the subject.
Connell’s (2005) theory of masculinity allows for changes over time in the kind of masculinity is hegemonic in society. German soccer has seemingly undergone a change in what constitutes hegemonic masculinity as well. Notions of masculinity in soccer have become more inclusive. Arguably, there has been a noticeable moderation of masculinity in the German national team. Athletes such as Philipp Lahm, Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose, Mesut Özil or Mario Götze serve as representatives of a more measured form of masculinity than the inflexible and boorish form of hyper-masculinity that came with players like Oliver Kahn, Andreas Brehme or Jürgen Kohler a generation earlier. Unlike those previous generations of players, which emphasized traditional values such as efficiency, strength and power, the younger generation exhibits values and playing styles that display grace, beauty, elegance, playfulness, and technical skills. As White et al. (2017: 132) argue, “(h)eterosexual athletes today can be feminine in presentation, physically tactile and sexually liberal.”
One particular incident marking the change in dominant forms of masculinity in German soccer was the claim of Michael Becker, the agent for former German national team captain Michael Ballack, that the 2010 German World Cup team was a “bunch of gays” (Schwulencombo) after Ballack had been dropped from the team. The comment provoked a media storm over the issue of homosexuality and soccer in Germany-but, interestingly, public critique that the national team coaches Jürgen Klinsmann and Jogi Löw had deliberately softened the image of the team by choosing more elegant and nimble players remained widespread. Ironically, it was precisely the more beautiful and joyful playing style of the German national team that Klinsmann and Löw had introduced in contrast to the often more robotic, muscular and efficiency-oriented way previous generations played gave rise to suspicions of the team’s “unmanliness.” The characterization of the game as “beautiful” and technically versed is often reserved for women’s soccer. The true “manly” game is powerful and efficiency-oriented. Rumors about gays on the national team were frequent. Talk show host Harald Schmidt called Klinsmann himself a Swabian faggot (Schwabenschwuchtel). Philipp Lahm devoted almost a whole chapter of his book Der feine Unterschied to deny that he was gay. And Arne Friedrich’s girlfriend announced publicly that Friedrich could not possibly be gay, because he loved her.
Another sign of change is the formation of gay fan groups and symbolic measures showing signs of more tolerance as well as outreach to the LGBTQ-community by clubs and individual players. For example, in 2007 Phillip Lahm became the first star player to give an interview to the gay magazine Front, in which he argued for tolerance and acceptance of potential gay players-only to advise gay players not to come out during their careers because of unpredictable consequences. The number of gay fan groups-such as Berlin’s Hertha–Junxx and Munich’s Queerpass Bayern-has been growing steadily, and clubs now recognize gay fan groups, and include them in consultations over various fan-related issues. Gay fan clubs bring their own rituals to the games, rainbow colored flags are clearly visible in the stands, and some clubs make sure to light up stadia in rainbow colors on Christopher Street Day.
Despite these changes, however, soccer remains largely a sphere for the expression of masculinity. The difference between the treatment of the issue of race compared to homophobia and sexism is telling. Nowadays, German soccer clubs feature many foreign players and players with migration backgrounds, and Turkish-Germans or Afro-Germans can represent the German nation to the rest of the world on the German national team. It is easier to integrate ethnic diversity into the masculine order of soccer, because ethnic diversity and masculinity can be compatible.
The Public Discourse on Thomas Hitzlsperger’s “Coming-Out”
Given the homophobic climate, it is not very surprising that active players have so far decided to stay in the closet during their playing careers. Various factors combine in deterring a possible coming-out. Despite the greater acceptance of inclusive masculinities, players fear to be ridiculed by their own fans and to be insulted by fans of the opposing team. Even if their own club is tolerant of gay players, they will lose market value, as other clubs might be less interested in employing them. And while sponsors may not necessarily be openly hostile to homosexual players, they do not have a particular incentive to sign them up as spokespeople for their products. In today’s environment, a player probably would not have to fear losing pre-existing sponsor contracts after coming out. But, everything else being equal, there is no material incentive for a player to leave the closet. Surveys of sport sponsors show that they prefer staying away from the topic of homosexuality (Leibfried and Erb 2011: 107-122). As a result, agents and financial managers of homosexual soccer players consistently advise them against a public coming-out. In any case, business would not be a strong lobby to advocate for the acceptance of gay players. In addition, international club and national team competition would also become an issue, when openly gay players would have to travel to countries with stronger homophobic climates. FIFA’s decision to hold the World Cup in Russia in 2018 and in Qatar in 2022-both countries with a significant homophobic climate-offers no encouraging signs for any active gay players considering a public coming-out. And even if many people would support and welcome a coming-out, at least the first players to do so would lose a great deal of privacy with the heightened interest of the fans and the media.
While it is possible that soccer sorts out gay players early in their career because they may lose interest in playing under the homophobic pressure in the sport, closeted homosexual players are present at the highest level of the game. Sport psychologists and social workers have publicly acknowledged working with homosexual players to deal with the pressures of hiding their sexual identity (Leibfried and Erb 2011: 75-88). Indeed, even before Thomas Hitzlsperger’s coming-out, there had been two other players whose homosexuality became known after their active playing careers had ended. Heinz Bonn played for the Bundesliga club Hamburger SV during the 1970s. He kept his homosexuality a secret, but the pressure contributed to his alcoholism. Tragically, his homosexuality became public knowledge when he was murdered by a male prostitute in 1991.
Marcus Urban was a talented youth player in East Germany during the 1980s and played for second division club Rot–Weiß Erfurt until 1991.7 At the age of 20, he decided to quit soccer. Several years later, Urban came out as gay and publicly acknowledged the pressure to hide his sexual orientation as the main reason for quitting the game. As a player, Urban had to live a double life between the heterosexual order of soccer and his own feelings until he was no longer able to reconcile playing soccer with his homosexuality. Urban is now a well-known spokesperson and advisor for various sports associations on LGBTQ issues.
Thomas Hitzlsperger is the most prominent and highest profile German soccer player to come out as gay. He played 52 international games for the German national team and was part of Germany’s 2006 World Cup roster. Nicknamed “Der Hammer” (The Hammer) for his strong kick, his most important club stints were with the English Premier League club Aston Villa between 2000 and 2005 and the German Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart between 2005 and 2010. He played for several other clubs before retiring from professional soccer at the of the 2012-2013 season while on the roster for the Premier League’s FC Everton.
On January 8th, 2014, the German weekly national newspaper Die Zeit published an interview with Thomas Hitzlsperger, in which he came out as gay (Emcke and Müller-Wirth 2014). With the interview Hitzlsperger sought to facilitate a public discourse about homosexuality among professional athletes. Indeed, the public reaction to Hitzlsperger’s coming out was rapid and overwhelming. The day Die Zeit posted the interview with Hitzlsperger on its website, its server crashed under the onslaught of people interested in the story. Never before had so many people tried to get access to the paper’s webpage. No other political topic had been big enough to create that kind of attention (Horeni 2014; Maier 2014). For most media outlets, including the major national newspapers and the news programs of the two main public television stations, Hitzlsperger’s coming-out was the main headline and the opening news story of the day.
On the surface, the public reaction to Hitzlsperger’s coming out was very positive. Public figures from the realm of politics, of entertainment, and of soccer spoke glowingly about his courage (Schallhorn and Hempel 2017). As journalists of the Süddeutsche Zeitung observed: “Respect. Courage. Obviously, Thomas Hitzlsperger enjoyed all the respectful reaction on the day of his coming-out. The coach of the German national team. The president of the German soccer association. The spokesman of the federal government. Former teammates from England, Italy, the German national team. All of them praised his courage to come out as the first prominent German professional soccer player” (Catuogno et al. 2014). One commentator even referred to a downright “lovestorm” that was closing in on the former player (Rüttenauer 2014).
In their reporting and commenting on his coming-out, the media portrayed Hitzlsperger as a very likable person. They showed sympathy for the difficulties, Hitzlsperger faced. In his Die Zeit interview, Hitzlsperger described his coming-out as a long and difficult process-a quote that repeatedly re-appeared in the reporting on this issue. Additional sympathy came with the fact that he grew up in a very conservative state, Bavaria, where, in Hitzlsperger’s words, “homosexuality was treated as something deviant and criminal” (Emcke and Müller-Wirth 2014). The German public also strongly approved of Hitzlsperger’s specific reasons for coming out. As he stated in the interview with Die Zeit, “I want to talk about my homosexuality. I want to facilitate the discourse about homosexuality among professional athletes.” (Emcke and Müller-Wirth 2014). The political context of Hitzlsperger’s coming-out also added support for him. His Die Zeit interview took place a few weeks before the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia-at a time of significant public attention to the Russian government’s discrimination and repression of homosexuals. In the interview, he explicitly stated as his motivation for the timing of his coming-out: “I believe that this is a good moment for it. The Olympic Games in Sochi are about to happen, and I think, we need critical voices in opposition to government campaigns against homosexuals” (Emcke and Müller-Wirth 2014).
The media also stressed Hitzlsperger’s success as a soccer player. This emphasis, however, could easily become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Hitzlsperger saw himself as fighting stereotypes by emphasizing that homosexuality and masculinity can go together. As he stated in Die Zeit interview, “I have an extremely hard kick that not many people have.. It is impossible to help the person who thinks that my appearance on the soccer field was unmanly.. Homosexuality and masculinity are not a contradiction” (Emcke and Müller-Wirth 2014). With that he wanted to set an example for young players that one can be simultaneously homosexual and a successful soccer player. In addition, his nickname, “The Hammer,” has obvious masculine connotations. Indeed, Schallhorn and Hempel (2017: 1187) view Hitzlsperger as a particularly appealing figure precisely because “he did not embody any of the negative, effeminate clichés or stereotypes of gay identity.” The downside to that viewpoint, however, is the implicit acknowledgement that less masculine players may have been treated differently in the public eye.
While the public response was overwhelmingly positive, there were also a few skeptical opinions. The former goalie of the German national team, Jens Lehmann, responded to Hitzlsperger’s coming out with one of the stereotypical utterances that are common in discourses on homosexuality and soccer: “I would have felt weird under the shower” (Focus 2014). Similarly, Bernd Lucke, the chair of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany, would have liked to see Hitzlsperger affirming the centrality of marriage and family for German society (Tagesspiegel 2014). Among the more skeptical voices were also comments that were positive in general about homosexuality in soccer, but would have preferred an active player to come out. They explicitly bemoaned the fact that Hitzlsperger had only done so after the “final whistle” (Maier 2014). As Der Stern commentator Jens Maier (2014) asked, “Isn’t it rather cowardly to occupy yourself with your coming-out for six years, as Hitzlsperger reports in his Zeit interview,.. and then wait until after the end of your career to finally do it?” In other words, in Maier’s view, Hitzlsperger’s announcement is only a second-rate coming-out. The common theme that ran through these more critical comments is the perception that German soccer for now had escaped the truly serious test-namely the coming out of an active professional soccer player. Of course, this sort of criticism of Hitzlsperger’s “second-rate coming-out,” which is superficially supportive of homosexuality (“we would really like for an active player to come out”), simultaneously robs homosexual players of their agency. A coming-out after the end of one’s playing career is obviously less real. Thus, it is evidently not the homosexual players themselves, who decide when a coming-out is serious. That definitional power is left to others (Sabisch 2014: 67).
There is something paradoxical about the situation. On the one hand, the public discourse is positive and very sympathetic to Hitzlsperger’s coming-out. Germany presents itself as tolerant and progressive. At the same time, the very fact that this needs to be emphasized indicates that homosexuality in soccer is still not normal. There exists a contradiction between the reality of soccer’s homophobia and the social desirability of the acceptance of gay players. That he, who wanted to be only a good soccer player became a national symbol is precisely the problem. The normal thing is still abnormal. The very publicity raised by Hitzlsperger’s coming-out underscores the dilemma. On the one hand, one can reach greater acceptance of homosexuality only through open dialogue about the topic. At the same time, however, the very same open discourse and the media attention make dealing with this issue more difficult. The public discourse of Hitzlsperger coming-out actually demonstrated the constraints active players would face if they decide to come out.
Conclusion
Overall, I come to less optimistic conclusions than several other scholars, who have examined homophobia in English football (e.g. Magrath 2017). What distinguishes their analysis from mine, primarily, is that for me the key issue is not whether individual players or spectators have become more acceptant of homosexuality in society. That is certainly the case. Rather, from the perspective of my analysis, the persistence of homophobia in the game is structural. In part, this has to do with the absence of a lobby fighting homophobia-and its close cousin, sexism. Despite the growth of homosexual fan groups, there are not enough powerful carriers of an anti-homophobic discourse. The DFB has not shown sufficient leadership in the fight against homophobia, and neither the media nor sponsors have any interest in making the struggle against homophobia a high priority for them. Soccer clubs and soccer associations became powerful advocates in combatting racism after the 1995 European Court of Justice’s Bosman Ruling allowed for the free movement of soccer players across borders. Clubs would have lost competitiveness in their efforts to attract foreign and multi-ethnic players if their stadium environment featured a racist climate. That commercial incentive simply does not yet exist with respect to homosexuality, and other powerful lobbies to combat homophobia still have to emerge.