How can Jordan Henderson square LGBT+ support with a move to Saudi Arabia?

The Liverpool footballer is following in the footsteps of an increasing number of players cashing in for the final years of their careers – but they will have to get used to accusations of hypocrisy, writes Martin Chilton

England international Henderson wearing a rainbow armband during a Liverpool match last season (Reuters)

Beware of not practising what you preach is a lesson Jordan Henderson has been forced to learn in making his move from Liverpool to Saudi Pro League (SPL) club Al-Ettifaq – a transfer that reportedly earns him £700,000 a week tax-free.

In football terms, Henderson is doing little different from all the other thirtysomethings jumping on private jets to trade cash for credibility, but what makes his move to a country where homosexuality is illegal so hard to understand is that it comes in the wake of his much-vaunted “support” of LGBT+ people.

In November 2021, extolling his Rainbow Laces credentials in a lengthy column for the Liverpool FC programme, Henderson wrote: “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.” Quite how Henderson stands shoulder to shoulder with men in a country where being gay is criminalised is unclear.