Thomas Hitzlsperger & Jake Daniels On Being Gay In Professional Football | The Gap

To celebrate Pride Month, we sat down with former professional footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger and current professional footballer, Jake Daniels, both of whom came out as gay.

Ex-Aston Villa, Everton and Germany player and Hitzlsperger made the decision to wait until he retired to publicly announce his sexuality, whereas current Blackpool player Jake chose to come out publicly during his career.

The two of them discuss why they chose to come out publicly when they did, what stops other gay male professional footballers from coming out and hopes for the future of the LGBTQ+ community in the men's professional game,

Thank you to Thomas and Jake for sharing their stories.

#sportbible #ladbible

[LADbible]

Thank you to Thomas and Jake for sharing their stories

[Joeboyify]

Have you ever noticed that people who say things like " i wouldn't shower infront of them are never attractive .. I worked on the Oil Rigs and was subjected to that stuff a lot ..None of the hot guys ever said that Stuff .. The insecurity is all about themselves

[kyesix]

The fact that homophobia is still prevelant is shocking

[nicolawiggins]

Well done boys! Great to see you share your stories :)

[hansherrmannshausen]

Thank you both, you help so many people to overcome wrong ideas.

[Cold_Logic]

Hitzlsperger had an absolute rocket of a shot 🚀

[herbie]

Great to see videos like this. Conversations like this will help the footballing world to progress and tackle homophobia in the sport

[finnrobson]

I would hope that most prem league lads are supportive and accepting

[JspoonG]

Thomas used to be one of my favorite soccer players. He had a really powerful long shots!

[ChesterRGC]

Sexuality will eventually shift from hetero/homo to a bisexual scale from 0-100%. There's an increasing number of attractive femboys, androgynous and non-binary people out there, sometimes you can barely differ them from cis-people.
You don't need to pick people from one gender, you can enjoy nice moments with anyone. Just respect others' attraction choices.

[jowah]

if anyone can be called a hero/role model, it's Jake...he's come out while he's still having to face a very homophobic sport

[robertwilson]

Two guys with HUGE BALLS, Congrats from Canada

[TheLazyColombian]

This is SO, so important. Homophobia is incredibly normalized in the football community (suffices to check any comment section of a football team post supporting LGBT rights).

Football fans are notoriously more prone to exhibit extremely heteronormative and homophobic behaviour than the general population, and it’s probably why there are dozens of footballers - even at the highest level of the game - who wouldn’t dare to come out.

Kudos to both of them.

[schnulliwutz]

I think Hitzlsberger refers to a comment Jens Lehmann made in a TV show about not sharing the shower with him after he came out.

[christopherstillwell]

RESPECT.

Be you, have good character, and Play great football, job done 🙏

[tomsmalley]

Great stories. I wish them both well & very helpful

[Alex.E.M]

love to everybody. happy pride & thanks to the lovely brave guests

[notsunkenland]

Huge dislike amount, this is sad to see. happy pride yall.

[ChesterRGC]

Gay and lesbian people who struggle with the idea of coming out: just say you're bisexual. That you feel attracted to both genders, that leaves the door open for hetero relationships and shocks your relatives less

[Elreypablo]

Thomas was a great player and great guy it seems like