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OFFBEAT

Mario Gomez tells gay footballers to come out

German national footballer Mario Gomez on Wednesday encouraged fellow players to come out of the closet if they are gay – something no active professional has yet done publicly.

Mario Gomez tells gay footballers to come out
Photo: DPA

The website of weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported that the 25-year-old Bayern Munich striker addressed the taboo of homosexuality in men’s sports, contradicting colleagues who have suggested such a move could ruin a player’s career.

“They would then play as though they’d been unshackled,” Gomez told magazine Bunte. “Being gay hasn’t been a taboo topic for a while.”

It’s an open secret that there are homosexual footballers in Germany’s Bundesliga, according to Die Zeit, but there are no openly gay players.

“We have a gay Vice Chancellor, the Berlin mayor is gay,” Gomez said, referring to Guido Westerwelle and Klaus Wowereit. “So football professionals should also acknowledge their preference.”

Two of Gomez’s national teammates have spoken against coming out of the closet in the last year.

Werder Bremen Goalkeeper Tim Wiese said in April that such a player would be put down by “merciless” fans of a “macho” sport and Bayern defender Philipp Lahm told Playboy last year that the pressure would be too great for such players.

“The player who would out himself now has to do his job in front of tens of thousands of spectators,” he told the magazine. “Guido Westerwelle doesn’t play football in front of 60,000 fans every weekend.”

The German Football Association (DFB) has also admitted that openly gay players would be confronted with major challenges.

“The first in professional football who outs himself as a homosexual will not have an easy path,” said DFB president Theo Zwanziger in a newspaper interview in December 2009, according to Die Zeit.

But Zwanziger also pledged to support any player who chooses to do so with all of the Bundesliga’s resources, the paper said.

On Sunday, Tatjana Eggeling, a media and gender studies expert at the University of Göttingen, told a sports show on broadcaster ZDF that she knew of fake heterosexual marriages set up for gay footballers in Germany and beyond to hide their sexual preferences.

While she wouldn’t name any players, Eggeling said there were even agencies to set up the terms of such marriage contracts.

The Local/ka

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RACISM

VIDEO: Spain’s La Liga reviews video of boy racially abusing Vinicius

Spain's La Liga on Monday said it was reviewing a video of a child making racist insults towards Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior during the 2-2 draw with Valencia at the weekend.

VIDEO: Spain's La Liga reviews video of boy racially abusing Vinicius

“We’re in the process of studying and analysing the facts from a legal standpoint to see what we can and should do,” La Liga sources said.

In a video published by a journalist for ESPN Brasil, and picked up by Spanish media, a boy sitting in a woman’s lap can be heard calling Vinicius a “monkey”.

https://twitter.com/GravesenFumado/status/1764242481984491822

The Brazilian scored twice for Madrid as his team recovered from two goals down at Mestalla on Saturday.

Vinicius raised his fist in a “Black Power” salute after the first of his two goals at a ground where he was racially abused last season. Valencia subsequently banned three people from the stadium for life.

The 23-year-old has become a symbol of the fight against discrimination in Spanish football after suffering racist abuse on many occasions, and he was jeered repeatedly by home supporters on Saturday.

Jude Bellingham was sent off after the final whistle against Valencia for protesting after the referee blew the final whistle right before the England midfielder headed home what he thought was the winning goal.

READ ALSO: Football star Vinicius highlights racist behaviour from Spanish fans

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