Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

Three months ago a mini revolution seemed to have taken place generally in German football but especially here in tolerant Berlin – Apparently gay players were welcome to come out and homophobia was a thing of the past.

The BZ gave us some examples of attitudes in the modern game: Although admitting that the subject was currently difficult, Preetz from Erna BSC assured us that he was against all forms of discrimination and that every player should make his own decision. Nordsachsen’s Beeck went a step further, pitying homophobes for their need to be prejudicial and claiming that playing football was about achievement and not at all about sexuality. Even the pitiful BFV, who in the recent years have seemed helpless or unwilling to come to the rescue of TUS Makkabi and Türkiyemspor, were defiant on the issue, Schultz himself claiming that the age of homophobic dinosaurs was well and truly over. All great news for Berlin’s gay football talent but still, despite all these positive words, the closet remains firmly closed.

But what caused this strange outburst of homosexual appreciation, understanding and tolerance from three people who, to be fair, are unlikely to be taking their co-managers and staff to YMCA the night away after this year’s Christopher Street Day? The answer, according to Schultz, was “intolerance personified”, a man who time has left behind with an opinion that is simply proletarian and hollow. No, not Christoph “just keep them away from kids” Daum, but Rudi Assauer, who in March this year claimed in an interview that gay footballers should get another job… or did he?

Well the BZ and their little article seemed convinced, as did most of those asked to comment on the subject, including the Gay and Lesbian Association of Germany (LSVD), who claimed that Rudi was surrendering to the rampant homophobia within football and supporting the wrong attitudes of many football officials. According to the LSVD, Assauer should have been taking on the homophobic attitudes of fans and players and not reacting in this way.
So what awful homophobic rubbish did Germany’s famous macho man Assauer come out with to deserve this hostile response from political groups, colleagues and journalists? Quite simple, he stated that he has nothing against gays, claimed that he is not aware of any gay footballers at the moment and said that if a homosexual footballer were to ask his advice about coming out, he would tell him to look for another job and strongly advise against coming out, because as a footballer you would be crushed and destroyed. In short, Rudi Assauer dared paint a realistic picture of the current state of professional football in Europe – one outing, one suicide.

In the week after another low-key LSVD Respekt Gaymes football tournament here in the city was successfully ignored by the vast majority of football fans, and three months since officials voiced their outrage at Rudi, there are still no gay professional footballers in Germany and unless a small miracle happens there will not be any next season or the season after that. Although religion and lack of family support played a huge role in Justin Fashanu’s tragic fate, he remains the only professional footballer to have played openly as a homosexual. Social attitudes have changed since then for sure and metrosexual stars like Lahm can have gay friends and win awards for their work to promote tolerance, but the statistical Justin would suggest that Rudi was not talking out of homophobia but perhaps just telling it how it is in his typically macho style – He probably has not met any openly gay footballers, any gay man considering a career in this homophobic world would probably be advised to keep their sexuality hidden or look for another job, because the chances are that they would be destroyed.

While standing up to the homophobic masses is undoubtedly a noble idea, Rudi’s open words about the dire state of football in Germany and as a whole are a damning criticism of the world’s favourite sport. By giving him the red card, LSVD and other critics of homophobia have scored an idiotic own-goal. He did after all simply tell the truth and his analysis more or less confirms what critics have been saying for a long time – the silent hatred towards gays in football makes coming out almost impossible and the pressure on gay players must be awful.

But where as I would defend Assauer for his supposedly outdated opinions, I would like to pour scorn of the tolerance of Preetz, Schultz and Beeck – three men who surely know that Rudi is just being realistic and who must realize that homophobia is not a thing of the past, that sexuality does play a huge role still in the game and that the idea that individual players should decide for themselves is just a form of denial because deciding for themselves is exactly what players cannot do. Rather than allow the German press to criticize Rudi and let these three men whitewash the reality of the current state of the game, I would like to thank Rudi for his honesty and perhaps a few TeBe fans would join me. After all, if a gay friend of mine asked me if I thought he should try his luck as a professional footballer, I would be scared shitless for him.


BZ article - http://www.bz-berlin.de/sport/fussball/ ... 66356.html
RA Interview - http://www.express.de/sport/fussball/sc ... index.html
JF Wikipedia - http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu
P Tatchell on JF - http://www.petertatchell.net/sport/justin%20fashanu.htm

[mr. bungle]

well, of course the tabloids were using the (applicable) cliché of mr. assauer as an outdated chauvinistic moron to have themselves a cheap headline which is questionless kind of hypocritical, like even the contradiction put up between him as the bad guy on the one side and the representatives of modern, allegedly tolerant football on the other. if they would have looked closely, they should have seen that assauers core statement does not really differ from what for instance corny littmann has been saying for years, namely that even today a coming out would mean hell for a football pro, so there is indeed the question if speaking out a bitter truth is the scandal or rather the truth itself. the difference between littmann and assauer might have been, besides the fact that littmann as a well-known 'gay movement activist' has a higher reputation than "get-me-some-beer-sweetheart"-rudi, that he did not depict the situation as an unchangeable lawfulness, but tried to show up ways out of the situation by advsising for example that a coming out should be accomplished by group of gay players and not by a single one. anyway, everyone who was witnessing mr. beeck's deeply poor performance on the friedrich-ebert-stiftung-discussion might be cured from the illusion that "modern" football officials have understood the phenomenon of homophobia in football.

[pusztapunk]

...and the doughnut boy is right again.

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

@Bungle

Sure I am not claiming that Rudi should be considered a kind of gay rights icon for his comments. As you agree, i am merely suggesting that his interview answers were open and honest, that they certainly do not make him a homophobic intolerant dinosaur and that the "I am tolerant" bullshit from other parts of the sport deserves much heavier criticism...

... and here I would also include Mr Littmann. Suggesting that everything is terrible and proposing rather unrealistic political alternatives is arguably what the Pauli brand is all about. The main difference that makes Assauer a dinosaur and Littman a modern man is exactly this - Rudi was always the footballer manager and Corny the event promoter and marketing man.