In December 2020, Jordan Henderson was emphatic in his help for the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. “You’ll never walk alone, Keith,” he instructed a fan who had detailed to the England worldwide his battle about popping out as homosexual aged 17 and the battle he confronted throughout his teenage years. 

Henderson continued: “If wearing the rainbow laces armband helps even just one person then it’s progress. Everyone is welcome at Liverpool Football Club.”

It was not Henderson’s first foray into full, unwavering, unambiguous help for the neighborhood. Keith was responding to a tweet from the Liverpool midfielder wherein he proudly instructed his followers that: “Football is for everyone. No matter what.”

The accompanying image confirmed him sporting a rainbow-coloured captain’s armband, a part of the Premier League’s rainbow laces marketing campaign. When a lot of his England team-mates refused to expose their views on World Cup hosts Qatar’s human rights report, Henderson boldly caught his head above the parapet. 

The 33-year-old mentioned the nation’s remedy of its LGBTQ+ neighborhood and ladies was “shocking, disappointing and horrendous”. 

Henderson, the captain of Liverpool, the person who lifted the membership’s first top-flight title in 30 years and an England worldwide since 2010, is - or, maybe, was - one of many LGBTQ+ neighborhood’s strongest and most high-profile allies inside a sport the place there stays huge stigma for LGBTQ+ gamers, followers, workers and different stakeholders. 

And so Henderson’s reported interest in a transfer to Saudi Arabian club Al-Ettifaq, the place he would be part of former Liverpool colleague Steven Gerrard, has naturally induced huge upset. In Saudi Arabia, being gay or transgender is against the law. Members of the neighborhood face extreme punishment. 

Kop Out, considered one of Liverpool’s LGBTQ+ fan teams, has mentioned it's “appalled and concerned” by the doable transfer. To full the switch can be for Henderson to ditch that allyship, for he may have change into one of many many new faces of a venture desperately washing its fingers of blood. 

This is not only about Henderson’s doable resolution, even when a few of the framing of a Premier League footballer - already incomes a reported £160,000 per-week - being provided a “life-changing” contract is especially galling. It is in regards to the exhausting false hope that the LGBTQ+ neighborhood continually faces. 

Even when the straightforward act of sporting a rainbow-themed captain’s armband adorning the phrase ‘One Love’ turned a risk on the World Cup, it turned out that sporting such colors was a yellow or crimson card offence - relying on whose spin you had the misfortune of consuming. 

Go again additional to when there was an nameless Twitter account claiming to be a Premier League footballer getting ready to return out as homosexual. What ought to have been a seismic second for LGBTQ+ rights was in the end a hoax, the account disappearing with no hint. 

Those throughout the neighborhood could be forgiven for by no means believing something ever once more, for PR stunts and cash appear much more vital than allyship. 

The switch has not occurred but. Henderson may determine to stay by the values he has vocally claimed to own. Becoming the primary elite footballer to publicly reject Saudi’s sportswashing and declare solidarity with the LGBTQ+ neighborhood can be an enormous victory. 

Express Sport has contacted Jordan Henderson for remark.