Their sportswashing seduces players and leagues – and the real targets: people who should know better
Jordan Henderson has been captain of Liverpool FC for eight years. He is a senior member of the England squad. He has been one of the most a vocal champion of LGBT rights within football. “I do believe when you see something that is clearly wrong and makes another human being feel excluded you should stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” he wrote two years ago in a Liverpool matchday programme about his support for gay rights.
Yet, to the dismay of many of his admirers, Henderson is on the verge of a move to Al-Ettifaq, a club in Saudi Arabia, a country in which homosexuality is banned, and in which gay men have been beheaded. His decision has no doubt been made easier by a reported weekly wage of £700,000. But it has led to condemnation from LGBT organisations and to denunciations of his “hypocrisy”.