Jordan Henderson said he was fronting up.
“I could have gone with another journalist who I may have a relationship with and been protected more. But I felt as though this felt right,” he told The Athletic after being grilled on his move to Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ettifaq.
It was a textbook proactive PR move, an effort to try and change the momentum. After weeks of being hammered in the press and on social media, he wanted to tell “his side” of the story. He wanted to look like he was being the bigger man, not hiding away.
The problem is that he lost the ability to do that long ago. In his final remarks, he implored readers to “make their own mind up” about why he has made the move.
He denied it was about money, and claimed that “having someone with those views and values [supporting the LGBT+ community] in Saudi Arabia is only a positive thing”, but one question later admitted “I’m not a politician. I never have been and never wanted to be. I have never tried to change laws or rules in England, never mind in a different country where I’m not from”.
Henderson seems to believe his mere presence in Saudi Arabia, however silent, will act as a catalyst for change. Now, his support for one of the world’s most marginalised communities is lain bare as opportunistic virtue-signalling.
How far have the mighty fallen. Henderson was not just captain of Liverpool, a football club with a history of giving a voice to the voiceless, but captain of the Premier League, on the field and off it. It was Henderson who lifted the Reds’ first Premier League trophy, but also Henderson who called an emergency meeting of the league’s skippers after the wildly unpopular European Super League news broke.
He wore rainbow laces and was one of football’s most prominent LGBT+ allies. Previously derided as overpriced and overrated in his younger days, he became known as one of the good guys.
Perhaps 20 or 30 years ago, he would have retained that reputation and could quietly have headed off to pad his bank balance at the behest of whatever autocracy he liked. But times have changed. The internet rarely forgets.
It is a lesson in the notoriously tricky game of reputation management, a concept that Steve Martin, global CEO at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, understands better than most.
We were not talking specifically about Henderson, but more the idea of trying to cultivate a positive image in sport as an athlete in the 21st century and how reputation management in sport has become more a way of life than the art of spin. In the context of the former Liverpool captain’s latest interview, Martin’s words resonate.
“Reputation cannot just be about perception. It’s also got to be about reality,” Martin told me in a chat a few weeks ago.
“I think before it was always about creating perception and then behind the scenes, maybe the reality wasn’t the same, but I think the two are the same now because I think everything is about transparency.
“And you can’t hide from that transparency any more because of the explosion of digital and social media, but also the fact that everybody has a mobile phone or a camera in their hand.
“So reputation management is increasingly important, because you can be found out very quickly.”
It means athletes, if they want to adopt a cause, must understand it is for life, not just for Christmas.
“The best businesses and the best individuals have a clear vision of that over multiple years as opposed to living on their wits,” Martin added.
“I think gone are the days when you’re completely reactive.
“Everybody’s human and there are going to be issues along the way that you’re going to have to react to accordingly, and that’s all part of managing your reputation in that way anyway, but I think the smart ones are having a dialogue between their managers and the agents and the people that are the key stakeholders around them. But the smart ones also know what their vision is or what they want to do.”
If Henderson did have a vision for his support of the LGBT+ community, it cannot possibly have involved a stint in Saudi Arabia, silently holding out for change. If it did, he is more impossibly naive than he seems today.
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