“For the first time in Germany! Gay football experts plan group coming out.”
This was the headline published on the website of Germany's most popular tabloid, BILD, in November 2023.
Suddenly this week, a version of the same article went viral, amplified by English social media accounts with millions of followers, resulting in a flurry of gossipy comments.
So what happened to start it all? And what does that say about the challenges that gay and bi athletes still face in men's professional sports?
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Print circulation in Western media may be declining, but the spirit of traditional “tabloid journalism”, characterized by an often sensationalized view of the news, remains.
It's been more than five months since BILD published the article, which has made waves in Germany and has steadily spread ever since. In the past 24 hours, the article has also made waves in the British media.
At the center of this is Marcus Urban, a former East German youth national team soccer player who came out in 2007.
He was speaking to BILD to launch a campaign he is organizing through his non-profit organization Diversero called “Sports Free.”
The main goal of this initiative is to create a “coming out” moment for athletes as a group. Urban told the newspaper that such players exist in men's professional soccer and that he can help free them.
“I still only have contact with the players through informants,'' he said at the time. “It's crazy how much fear there is. Men are concerned about speculation about their sexual orientation directly in the media and in clubs.”
Mr. Urban's words were also picked up elsewhere in the German media. The following month, he talked about two more website campaigns in his home country and even set his target date of May 17th as a window of opportunity for those wishing to go public.
OutSports reported on the article, noting that similar claims had been made in the past for male professional athletes to work as a group in soccer and the NFL, and that they never materialized.
Sports Free will also have a crowdfunding element, with several Bundesliga clubs announced to have pledged to financially support the project. A portion of the funds will be used for the production costs of a documentary film.
This has led to some skepticism, but Urban seems undaunted. “Ultimately it's a matter of organization,” he said, suggesting a positive and empowering event could be held in mid-May.
That was before this week. Now, Urban has to deal with a potential spanner in the works, the very same “speculation” he himself warned about when speaking to BILD.
Rules of engagement
On Saturday, German digital network RND reported on “Sports Free” in a new in-depth feature. The article, which summarizes the story of the campaign so far with new quotes from Urban, was also published on the network's regional website.
“May 17th is an offer,” Urban told RND. “It's a day we can use as a guide and come together as a group.” He claimed that momentum was building in the first months of 2024 and that “people's hearts are starting to move” as the target coming out date approaches.
This Friday marks the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, so there are only three weeks until May 17th. It is also the final weekend of the regular season for the Bundesliga and Bundesliga.2.
It took a few days, but the RND feature appears to have first penetrated British media coverage on Tuesday afternoon via SPORTbible, with the article appearing on the Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung web site, one of more than 20 sites in the RND network. It was linked to the site.
SPORTbible has a large influence on social media, including a Facebook page with 13 million followers. Their post on the Sports Free article was captioned: “An important step for several soccer players to compete on the same day.”
By Wednesday morning, the article had also appeared on three popular British news websites: Daily Mail Online, JOE.co.uk and Metro.co.uk. Mail Online incorrectly credited “Preussische Allgemeine Zeitung”, which is not part of the RND network, as the source of the new report.
Meanwhile, other social media accounts with many followers also broke the news of the group's coming out. With X, large-scale engagement on posts can now be profitable, following changes Elon Musk made last year to reward premium Bluetick accounts.
On the DeadlineDayLive account, related posts with rainbow corner flags have been viewed 2.5 million times at the time of writing. The only post that received more views on this account in the past 24 hours was Anonymous's post related to the news of the arrest of two of his league players.
In replies and comments to these posts, some users openly speculated about which players they thought were gay, often using homophobic metaphors. There were also several examples of anti-gay slurs.
Emoji and emotions
Cagliari midfielder Jakub Jankut is currently the only openly gay footballer playing in Europe's major men's professional league.
Jankt came out publicly in February 2023 and signed with the Italian Serie A club five months later. He has made 20 appearances for the first team this season.
In a new study published this week on hate speech in Italian soccer, analysts at data digital firm The Fool looked at reactions on Facebook to articles mentioning Jankt's sexuality.
They found that the majority of responses were negative, with 40% using the laughing face emoji and 15% using the angry face emoji. SPORTbible These two emojis were also the most used in Tuesday's posts about coming out from soccer player groups on Facebook.
Fortunately, Jankt said in an interview last year that he has no regrets about coming out publicly, even if he was a little reluctant.
However, this data study shows that coming out as gay still requires considerable courage, especially in men's professional football, where only six openly gay players are currently active worldwide. It should serve as a reminder.
The “Sports Free” project is an attempt to collectively share the weight of pressure. If there are several players looking to emulate Jankto, and if, as Urban claims, the “orchestration” of their joint announcements is the key to unlocking their closets, then the impending moment is their liberating potential. There is a possibility that you can still exhibit your sexuality.
However, with speculation currently swirling on social platforms and increased scrutiny from German and international media, there is already a strong sense of anticipation for May 17th.
As Urban told BILD in November, fear can be a “crazy” emotion. Just when you think you have it under control, the anxiety can come back.
And if we've learned anything from previous tabloid journalism, it's that coming out is not only an act to be celebrated, but also to be exploited. The algorithms that drive social media cater to the same audience.
Sports Free, which has been feeding the media beast to feed its appetite, now finds itself at the mercy of sensationalism. Planning this type of event in public is a risky business.