Sickening hypocrisy: Breaking down Jordan Henderson’s move to Al-Ettifaq

Jordan Henderson’s move to Al-Ettifaq still feels unsettling. Orchestrated by former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard – recently appointed as manager of one of the 18 Saudi Pro League clubs – the current Liverpool captain was persuaded to sign a three-year, roughly £700,000-a-week contract for a team based on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia.

Steven Gerrard himself reportedly pockets around £300,000-a-week, which must help ease the embarrassment of stating live on Channel 4 that he “won’t be taking that offer up” just 14 days prior.

Henderson wasn’t just a Liverpool captain though, nor just a Liverpool captain who oversaw the club’s most successful period since the inauguration of the Premier League in 1992, but the spearhead of the Premier League’s Rainbow Laces campaign.

Jordan Henderson was supposedly one of the great allies for the LGBT+ community in English football, and, as such, the £12 million transfer on July 27 felt like a huge step in the wrong direction.

Saudi Arabia appear to be following the United Arab Emirates blueprint in their sportswashing endeavour. The 2021 takeover of Newcastle United replicated the 2008 takeover of Manchester City by Sheikh Mansour, currently Vice President of the UAE.

The difference between three and nil points may prove a more bothersome distraction than any human rights violation ever could in a far-off country.

Evidence shows it works. In 2018, Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organisation focused on human rights, referred to the UAE’s astronomical investment in Manchester City as “one of football’s most brazen attempts to ‘sportswash’ a country’s deeply tarnished image”.

Football fans are fickle, especially in an era of social media, where a good portion of supporters consume the majority of their football content online. Sadly, fans may prefer a new, flashy number 9 backed by a new, flashy owner, rather than worry about what is happening thousands of miles away.

The difference between three and nil points may prove a more bothersome distraction than any human rights violation ever could in a far-off country.

In comparison, Qatar took sportswashing a step further in securing the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup along with acquiring Paris Saint Germain. Forcing the biggest leagues in Europe to grind to a halt for two months to accommodate a Winter World Cup – thanks to the Middle East’s unplayable climate in the northern hemisphere summer – only served to highlight the absurdity of the situation.

As Qatar embarked on a mammoth infrastructure programme to put up the façade of a footballing nation to those around the world, negative press from the thousands of migrant deaths linked to the operation built and built.

Now Saudi Arabia, using the infamous, seemingly endless money pit that is the Public Investment Fund (PIF), have taken it an even bigger step forward.

However, all concern seemed to quickly subside once Lionel Messi finally lifted the World Cup trophy in a penalty shoot-out victory over France and Kylian Mbappe, employed by Qatar-backed PSG.

Now Saudi Arabia, using the infamous, seemingly endless money pit that is the Public Investment Fund (PIF), have taken it an even bigger step forward.

A planned bid for the 2030 FIFA Men’s World Cup was recently put on the back burner after the Saudi contingency accepted they would have struggled to secure the backing from UEFA nations – the winner is now expected to be the tri-nation bid of Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. However, their focus has instead turned to the 2034 edition.

Expected to be decided around 2027, no longer will Saudi have to couple their bid with a UEFA nation (Greece was the chosen candidate for 2030) after FIFA resurrected their continental rotational policy which stops the World Cup from being hosted in the same region more than once every 12 years.

Of course, maybe 20 years ago, the bid would have been met with disdain, but after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, at least there is a semblance of football history in Saudi. Moreover, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has a 75% stake in Al Nassr, Al Hilal, Al Ahli, and Al Ittihad, in conjunction with their 80% controlling interest in Newcastle United.

The current football landscape is dominated by Europe and UEFA

It’s not quite the multi-club ownership model like that of Manchester City and the City Group, or Chelsea FC and BlueCo, though it does represent a series of takeovers, all assigned to elevate the respective clubs and, most importantly, the Saudi Pro League.

The huge question that has arisen over the past nine months since Cristiano Ronaldo’s game-changing move to Al Nassr is why? Why all this investment in their own Saudi Pro League – when their sportswashing efforts could be maximised with full focus on the Newcastle United takeover?

The current football landscape is dominated by Europe and UEFA, and it’s hard to believe that one nation can have a meaningful impact on the football sphere as a whole.

It does feel different from the past when the US, Japan, and China have all tried to throw money at and entice aging football stars to relocate themselves to sit in the shop window of their new ventures – all to realise that meaningful change can only come from the grassroots level.

The quality of names is certainly an improvement from the Chinese Super League ‘invasion’ of European football in 2017. Saudi Arabia has gone for Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, compared to Oscar and Hulk. In this vein, Ronaldo has brought both an in person
and online fervour to Al Nassr matches, with reports that viewership spiked to seven times the level of 2022 following his introduction in 2023.

Nonetheless, quality-wise, the Pro League is nowhere close to the Premier League, La Liga, or the Bundesliga, let alone the mid-week nights of Champions League football.

The official LGBT+ fan community for Liverpool FC, Kop Outs, asked if Henderson “was ever an actual ally”.

Even optimistically, we are likely talking several decades before Saudi domestic football achieves parity with the big five European leagues, with some dismissing this possibility altogether. The UEFA president, Aleksander Ceferin, this month rejected the possibility of Saudi Arabian clubs being invited into the Champions League.

One transfer feels different though, enough to cause significant disruption, not necessarily in a footballing sense, but instead a political one.

In early 2014, Thomas Hitzlsperger, a midfielder who represented Aston Villa, West Ham United, Everton, and the German National team, came out as gay, becoming the highest-profile male footballer to do so up to that point.

This summer, on social media, he wrote: “So Jordan Henderson finally gets his move to Saudi Arabia. Curious to know how the new brand JH will look like. The old one is dead! I did believe for a while that his support for the [rainbow emoji] community would be genuine. Silly me”.

The official LGBT+ fan community for Liverpool FC, Kop Outs, asked if Henderson “was ever an actual ally”. An image that Henderson had built since the end of 2020 came crashing down over one summer. The announcement video Al Ettifaq released conveniently made
Henderson’s captain’s armband black and white instead of showing its rainbow colours. The figure at the forefront of the Premier League’s rainbow laces campaign has moved to a country where being gay is illegal.

Having lost their most vocal spokesperson, who the Premier League’s social campaigns look to this season remains to be seen.

The disrespect shown by Henderson has done more damage than the good of his ‘stunt’ of being supportive of LGBT+ rights. More damage than those in Europe who refuse to play a game of football with rainbow colours on their shirts. More damage than the often
disgusting comments beneath any social media post on LGBT+ footballing discourse could ever do.

A multi-millionaire choosing more money over morals. This isn’t the same as you or me getting a pay rise. This is going from generational wealth to even more generational wealth. He has gone to the Middle East, not to protest their stance on LGBT+ rights, but to collect a greater paycheck and keep quiet.

Having lost their most vocal spokesperson, who the Premier League’s social campaigns look to this season remains to be seen. There are a whole host of candidates who can take on the role Henderson left, but how much irreparable harm has been caused by his departure? The taking the knee movement had its critics.

Ivan Toney believed players were being “used as puppets”, and Brentford stopped kneeling before games in February of 2021.

Jordan Henderson isn’t a critic though, a more apt term may be hypocrite. Years of work furthering a safe space for LGBT+ stakeholders in football took a multitude of steps back this summer, all thanks to the former Liverpool man.