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Topics: Football
Nasir Jabbar
A group of professional footballers are planning to come out as gay next month, according to a report in Germany.
A report in Germany claims that there's a group of players that are planning to collectively come out as gay next month on the same day - May 17.
It's part of an initiative to encourage players, coaches, referees and officials to come out, with several Bundesliga clubs supporting a project created by Marcus Urban, who come out as gay during his career.
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Urban and his association are in contact with the players who are planning to come out as gay collectively.
"May 17th is an offer." he said. "A date that you could use as a guide and get together as a group."
Borussia Dortmund, Union Berlin, St. Pauli, Freiburg and Stuttgart are among the clubs that are financial supporters of the project.
It's been 10 years since Thomas Hitzlsperger came out as gay, but there are still officially no homosexuals in male professional football in Germany.
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Many had hoped the former Aston Villa midfielder's announcement would have triggered a movement.
The planned group outing is called 'Sports Free' as players and coaches can reveal their sexuality via a platform that will go online in the coming weeks.
A sports psychiatrist said: "Around professional football there is still this habitus that the sport is associated with very masculine characteristics, fight, dominance, strength, aggressiveness.
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"It is no coincidence that homosexuality is still a huge taboo in male professional football, while it has always been a part of female professional football."
As part of the initiative, there will be a documentary titled 'Hide and Seek' - which will follow the individual processes of the players.
Urban reports that there is currently intensive communication about the players planning to come out.
"There is controversy there," he said. "Do I still want to wait until the world of football becomes the way I want it to be? Why should I wait? An interesting dynamic has come into play, you can see that people's minds are starting to move and are thinking about whether it really makes sense to continue to hide and deny themselves."