The skipper is thankfully not a homophobe, but what about the
rest of the footballing community?
Why is it important for a club captain to vocally support social
campaigns for the rights of marginalized groups? Why is it
important for any celebrity to “speak out” on an issue? Well it
isn’t really.
But the fact remains that they have a platform at their
disposal, and a weirdly disproportionate influence on
impressionable, young followers. And when many of these followers
happen to be young football fans raised in a sports culture
entrenched with misogyny, homophobia and racism (except when Black
players or Muslim players are scoring goals for your side), it
seems as though every opportunity to influence them to fight these
tendencies is a valuable one.
Jordan Henderson expressed support for the Premier League’s
Rainbow Laces campaign this past weekend, an initiative that supports Stonewall. His
rainbow-coloured captain’s armband was accompanied by a broad
message of solidarity on Twitter.
Football is a game for everyone. No matter
what. #RainbowLaces pic.twitter.com/wDLFgY2pp3— Jordan Henderson (@JHenderson) December 5, 2020
He then went a step further and responded to Keith, a Liverpool
fan who commented about having struggled against prejudice, with a
heartfelt message saying, among other things, that everyone is
welcome at Liverpool Football Club.
You’ll never walk alone Keith. If wearing
the #RainbowLaces armband helps even just one
person then it’s progress. Everyone is welcome at Liverpool
Football Club. Hope you enjoyed the game tonight. #YNWA https://t.co/TfIhASribZ— Jordan Henderson (@JHenderson) December 6, 2020
The gesture comes at a time when Mara Gomez recently became the
first transgender woman to play professional football, representing
Argentinian side Villa San Carlos. The news was met with a flurry
of vile, and bigoted responses from football fans on social media,
particularly Twitter where tribalism emboldens such tendencies.
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Wikipedia lists only three English footballers, and one German
footballer who played in the Premier League, to have come out. The
first professional footballer to come out as gay was Justin Fashanu, who faced not only homophobic
but also racist abuse, and eventually committed suicide (owing to a
number of reasons, but the abuse he faced was a likely
contributor).
And while studies indicate that there is now
near-unanimous acceptance of openly gay teammates among
footballers, the fan bases present a more chequered picture. Clubs
like Brighton, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton
and West Ham have all investigated incidents of homophobic abuse by
fans in the past year. At the same time, a representative of
Brighton’s LGBT+ supporters group Proud Seagulls said in an interview, “Across (the league) we
are seeing an increase in fans reporting their own fans for
discrimination. Whereas before it would hardly happen.”
And okay that’s nice, but for every message of solidarity, there
are five hateful tweet responses (no stat here, just linguistic
flourish), and it’s laughable to hear people say things like “the
game’s come a long way, and we’ve made progress”. Incremental
progress in 2020 is simply not enough.
Anyway, to wrap that up, let’s thank the stars for Jordan
Henderson. Great guy, good captain, not a homophobe.