Marcus Urban

Marcus Urban (born 4 August 1971, earlier Marcus Schneider) is a former German football player. He played with the East Germany national youth football team and in the second division club Rot-Weiß Erfurt in the 1980s and early 1990s. Several years afterwards he came out as a gay man. He has spoken publicly about the difficulties that gay footballers experience, and he is now a spokesperson and campaigner on diversity issues in sport and the workplace. As a child, he took on his step-father's surname, Schneider, but as an adult he changed it back to his mother's maiden name. In 2008, the sports journalist Ronny Blaschke published an authorised biography of Urban. This is titled Versteckspieler: Die Geschichte des schwulen Fußballers Marcus Urban ('Hidden Player: the story of the gay footballer Marcus Urban')