Marcus Urban

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Marcus Urban (2011)

Marcus Urban (born August 4, 1971 in Weimar , formerly Marcus Schneider ) is a former German soccer player who became known for the publication of his biography "hide-and-seek", which is about homophobia in soccer .

Life

Urban grew up in the GDR . At the age of 13 he went to the children's and youth sports school in Erfurt , where he studied with world and Olympic champions of GDR sports. He went through the GDR national soccer teams of different age groups.

Urban was a midfielder in the junior league at FC Rot-Weiß Erfurt in the 1980s and early 1990s , which today corresponds to a junior Bundesliga, where he played against later players of the German national team such as Bernd Schneider , Thomas Linke , Steffen Freund and Frank Rost . He was on the verge of becoming a professional footballer, but the pressures of having to hide in the football world as a homosexual prevented a possible career.

He studied urban and regional planning at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and graduated in 2000 as a graduate engineer specializing in renewable energies . In November 2007, he came out as a homosexual in an interview . In 2008 his biography was published with the title “Hide and Seekers. The story of the gay footballer Marcus Urban ”.

His path led him to work as an engineer for wind power planning, in different cultures, in the design world of Milan or in working with disabled artists. Today he is a sought-after educator in the media as well as a consultant and educational speaker in readings and seminars. As a diversity consultant and personal coach for individuals and organizations, he becomes an advisor on questions of self-confidence and on the topics of diversity and intercultural skills. Urban gave speeches in the sports committee of the German Bundestag or at commercial enterprises, worked for the German Olympic Sports Confederation , the DFB and organized readings at theaters and in social institutions.

Urban is the board member of the Association for Diversity in Sport and Society and co-founder of the network of experts “Football for Diversity”, formerly “Football against Homophobia”, a project of the Federal Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation .

literature

  • Ronny Blaschke : hide-and-seek. The story of the gay footballer Marcus Urban. Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-89533-611-9 .
  • Leibfried, Dirk; Erb, Andreas: The Silence of Men: Homosexuality in German Football . Verlag Die Werkstatt, Göttingen, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89533-815-1
  • Rohlwing, Christoph: Homosexuality in German professional football: gay-free zone football field? Tectum-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2011, ISBN 978-3-82883-596-2
  • Walther-Ahrens, Tanja: Changing sides: Coming-out in football . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2011, ISBN 978-3-57906-699-8

Web links

Commons : Marcus Urban  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Marcus Urban website
  • Gay footballer. Lonely top. In: tageszeitung (taz), October 16, 2008 (portrait of Marcus Urban: "Marcus Urban is a professional footballer and homosexual. For success he sacrifices freedom: an outing can mean the end of the sport. He has only been openly gay since the end of his career. ")
  • “I was afraid of myself” - Marcus Urban in conversation with Patrick Hoffmann. In: planet-interview, December 12, 2008 ("Marcus Urban on homophobia in football, why 'gay' has become a swear word on the pitch and whether he feels more liberated today")

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of Marcus Urban. In: marcus-urban.de, accessed on July 16, 2017.
  2. ↑ Football star Marcus Urban in the Thuringia Talk. No more hide and seek. In: antennethueringen.de, accessed on July 16, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Roland Kirbach: Being gay today - completely normal? Homosexuals are successful in culture and politics. They shape entire industries and districts. But at the same time the hatred of them grows. In: zeit.de. Die Zeit , June 21, 2007, accessed October 29, 2008.
  4. ↑ “Just the word gay scared me” ( memento from June 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ). In: sueddeutsche.de. Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 29, 2008, accessed on July 16, 2017 ("Marcus Urban was considered one of the most talented football players in his age group in GDR football - he reports in a book about his life as a homosexual athlete"; limited preview).
  5. ↑ a b Marcus Urban in conversation with Kai-Niels Bogena: "Gay footballers are afraid". In: welt.de. November 11, 2007, accessed on July 16, 2017 ("In no other sport is dealing with homosexuality as taboo as in football. Marcus Urban was a midfielder in the second division. He ended his career out of shame. In the 'Welt am On Sunday 'he breaks his years of silence and talks about marriages of convenience and hide and seek ”).
  6. ↑ table football. Special issue 1991/1992 as well as various individual issues at the beginning of the 90s.
  7. ^ Adrian Lobe: The archaic world of football. "Are you gay, you ugh!" An essay. In: zeit.de. Zeit Online , March 17, 2010, retrieved July 16, 2017 (“In the arena of manliness: How the Amerell case reveals the moral emptiness, materialism and lack of ethics in football”).
  8. ↑ Jan Feddersen : Gay footballers. Outing desperately wanted. In: taz, accessed on July 16, 2017.
  9. ↑ Carsten Weidemann: The first gay footballer breaks the silence. In: queer.de, accessed on July 16, 2017 ("Homosexuality is the last taboo in professional football. The 'hide-and-seek' 'Marcus Urban has now published his life story in a book.").
  10. ↑ Tobias Schall: Marcus Urban: "I thought: as a footballer you are not gay". The footballer and his life story ( memento from November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). In: stuttgarter-zeitung.de, November 3, 2008, accessed on July 16, 2017.
  11. ↑ a b references. In: marcus-urban.de, accessed on July 16, 2017.
  12. ↑ Imprint. Association for Diversity in Sport and Society, accessed on July 16, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Urban, Marcus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schneider, Marcus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar