The Liverpool players were right. Love cannot be bought with money. It’s not the love you need for the European Super League, VAR technology or approval to play in a country where homosexuality is still punishable by death. The Beatles also sang about Nowhere Man, proving once again that musical fortune tellers really did write songs about everything.
Jordan Henderson is our Nowhere Man, the boy currently being flogged where gay men can still be flogged. After all, the England midfielder couldn’t change the world with rainbow-colored shoelaces. He also failed to fulfill his noble ambition of knowing the truth about LGBTQ+ rights in Saudi Arabia. (Nothing. Now it’s over. He could have avoided six months of pain and public abuse for his family.)
Instead, he mustered up some Dutch courage and headed to Ajax, a football club that had no intention of airbrushing out the rainbow armband on an old photo in Henderson’s scrapbook. Ajax don’t play to near-empty stadiums, nor are they run by members of English football’s golden generation who are teetering on an even earlier exit from the dugout. There is).
Of course, Henderson is expected to get by on just £85,000 a week at Ajax (and now apparently on a hefty tax bill), as opposed to the £350,000 a week he would have earned at Al Etifaq. seems to be facing it). Horror.
Henderson was reportedly unhappy. He was dissatisfied with the average home gate count of 7,854 in the 35,000-seat stadium. He was unhappy with the heat. He remembers being frustrated that Al Etifaq, the team managed by Steven Gerrard, had not won their previous nine games. Hasn’t he heard of his Google? Did it take him six months to figure out that the Saudi Pro League is just a sham, a prop as empty as an old black and white movie storefront? Or?
The Saudi Pro League is a kind of sportswash operation, but more ironically, it is a dictatorship to move away from oil-dependent investments and into something more sustainable and favorable for a human civilization that is slowly slipping into oblivion. It’s part of the administration’s grand project.
And while we play the frog in the boiling water fable, Henderson plays the scapegoat, which on the surface seems unfair. He wasn’t the first to get oil money. And everyone from North America’s Bobby Moore and George Best to China’s Didier Drogba and Carlos Tevez spent the fall in early leagues replenishing their pension funds. So what was the problem with Henderson?
It was Henderson. He was our problem. He was our Luke Skywalker during the COVID-19 lockdown, then inexplicably transformed into Darth Vader as soon as the pandemic ended. The character’s changes were so extreme, so unexpected, they were almost impossible to swallow on the silver screen, let alone in real life. The greatest man in the worst of times somehow made a mockery of the great man’s accomplishments. His own.
Top figures speaking out for underprivileged communities
In May 2023, Henderson and comedy legend Michael Palin were invited to participate in a new exhibition called ‘Love and Charity: A History of Giving in the NHS’ to celebrate the UK’s National Health Service’s 75th anniversary. Now even that name seems disgusting. But that’s the kind of company Henderson kept a year or so ago, hanging out with national treasure Palin and on his way to becoming that kind of company himself.
In 2020, he organized the ‘Players Together’ initiative to encourage professional footballers to donate to the NHS during the coronavirus outbreak. He made his fortune because of the medical industry. He was a humble hero. Authentic.
He was never going to accept Saudi cash, right? He was a proud and impressive advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. He advocated equality for all people. His iridescent lace and armbands were no empty histrionic gestures. He mentioned them. The Saudi Professional League will never be the final destination for the 33-year-old soccer player, human rights activist and all-around top athlete.
Until that happens.
And he took on the most thankless role of his career. He burst the bubble. He pulled back the curtain, taking the game into new territory and removing the public relations headaches of bringing together a diverse football community. There was nothing there except a bag of cash. His contract signature suggested that. His premature retirement confirmed this. The Saudi Professional League exists purely to boost the geopolitical reputation of a country in transition by shelling out millions of dollars, no questions asked, to greedy soccer players. Be quiet and update your Instagram account.
In the end, Henderson will no longer be able to participate in that damn quest and be immune to the smug commentary about hypocrisy, cynicism, karma, etc. he knows it. He can only quietly restore his reputation at Ajax, a dignified workplace for a footballer who has so far built a remarkable career with quiet dignity.
And over time, we will calm down a little and look for positive straws. First and foremost, the most heartening thing is that there is a low threshold for bulls**t in the soccer world. People turned against the European Super League and the project fell apart. They continue to challenge VAR and it will be adjusted at some point. And they came for Henderson, too. The boos he received from England supporters were intense. He called Wembley’s reaction “hurt”.
But it was fair. This is not a call for mob justice, but rather a recognition that diverse voices in the game matter. All of them are worth listening to. Henderson’s hypocrisy was harmful to many fans as well, and they told him so. Eventually, he listened. That’s a straw to grasp at.
The other one concerns the Saudi Pro League itself. The giant piggy bank has just experienced its first high-profile defection, and Mr. Henderson won’t be the last. Karim Benzema is also not too keen on life at Al Ittihad. He may no longer be a one-way street to Saudi Arabia.
Henderson made a mistake, but his departure may still be redeemable. His shortened stay hints at a dark and oppressive reality. Take away the exorbitant amounts and there is little else to play with in Saudi Arabia. It’s reassuring to think that, at least for some elite soccer players, this game still means something more.
Take away the exorbitant amounts and there is little else to play with in Saudi Arabia. It’s reassuring to think that, at least for some elite soccer players, this game still means something more.
Neil Humphries is an award-winning football writer and best-selling author who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and written 28 books.
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