Thomas Hitzlsperger: Former Aston Villa player reveals he is gay

Thomas Hitzlsperger: Former Aston Villa player reveals he is gay

The 31-year-old, who won 52 caps for Germany and also played for West Ham and Everton, made the announcement in newspaper Die Zeit. He is the most prominent footballer to publicly reveal his homosexuality and said it was “a good time” to do so.
“I’m coming out about my homosexuality because I want to move the discussion about homosexuality among professional sportspeople forwards,” he added. The midfielder, who retired from the sport in September after a series of injury problems, said he has only realised “in the past few years” that he would “prefer to live together with another man”, adding: “I’ve never been ashamed of the way I am.”
However, he said the issue is taboo inside the dressing room and it had not always been easy to live with some of the comments dished out on the subject. “Just picture 20 men sat around a table together drinking – you’ve just got to let the majority be, just as long as the jokes are halfway funny and the talk about homosexuality doesn’t get too insulting,” he said.

High-profile athletes from other sports have openly discussed their sexuality in recent years, with Olympic diver Tom Daley revealing in December he was in a relationship with a man. But examples in football are few and far between. In 1990, former England Under-21 international Justin Fashanu was the first professional footballer in Britain to reveal he was gay. He took his own life eight years later, aged 37.

In February 2013, former United States and Leeds United winger Robbie Rogers said he was gay while Swedish footballer Anton Hysen, son of former Liverpool player Glenn Hysen, announced his homosexuality in an interview with a Swedish football magazine in 2011. “It’s really going the right way now and it’s a good change, for me coming out has been 99% positive and I don’t regret anything about my decision,” Hysen, who plays in the Swedish third division.
“I’ve had a few things in games where people would say things, players, fans, or anonymous messages on the internet. When that is around, that is why we have to work for a better future. It shouldn’t even be an issue that is needed to be discussed in 2014.”

“Footballers coming out at the highest level will happen only as the product of a cultural change within the game. It will not be the precursor to cultural change in football,” he said. “If you want to see people being who they are, coming out and playing at their very best because they’re able to be who they are, then the culture of football must change first.”
Hitzlsperger joined Villa as a teenager in 2000 from Bayern Munich and went on to play for Stuttgart, Lazio, West Ham and Wolfsburg, with a short stint at Everton before the end of his career.

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