German former player causes outrage with anti-gay comments
Former Borussia Dortmund and Werder Bremen defender Rudi Assauer has sparked outrage with controversial comments stating that there is no place for gays in football.
Assauer, who later coached Bremen and Schalke has since retired from coaching. A one-time general manager of Schalke, he now works as an agent with his agency Assauer Sportmanagement AG.
“Perhaps they [gays] are OK in other sports but not in football. If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: ‘You have shown courage’. But then I would tell him to find something else to do,” Assauer is quoted as saying by German magazine Spiegel.
“That’s because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch-hunts.”
Assauer also admitted to telling a former masseur at Werder Bremen, whom he discovered to be gay, to look for another job.
“When I was in Bremen, I heard that our masseur was gay. So I went up to him and said: ‘Look, son, do me a favour – look for another job.’,” he declared.
Gay groups in Germany have condemned Assauer’s comments as ‘beneath contempt’.
