Thomas Hitzlsperger is a German football pundit who played as a midfielder for Aston Villa, West Ham, Everton, Wolfsburg, Stuttgart and Lazio during his professional playing career. He also played for the German national team in 2005 and 2006, appearing in the 2006 World Cup.
Hitzlsperger is the only Premier League footballer to date to come out as gay, doing so in January 2014, just a few months after his retirement. He is one of the highest profile footballers ever to do so. Many of his former colleagues in the German national team supported his decision to go public about his sexuality, being described by his German teammate Lukas Podolski as ‘brave’ and ‘an important sign of our times’.
Following his retirement from playing professional football, Hitzlsperger became the head of sport at VfB Stuttgart, before retiring from that role in 2022 to focus on his television career. He continues to use his voice to promote inclusivity in football, engaging in LGBT+ activism and blogging for the anti-racism website Störungsmelder.