{"id":10942,"date":"2023-11-23T18:30:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T15:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/10942\/hendersons-saudi-move-a-slap\/"},"modified":"2023-11-23T18:30:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T15:30:51","slug":"hendersons-saudi-move-a-slap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/?p=10942","title":{"rendered":"Henderson&#8217;s Saudi move a &#8216;slap in the face&#8217; &#8211; Jake Daniels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Henderson&#8217;s Saudi move a &#8216;slap in the face&#8217; &#8211; Jake Daniels\u060c<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Jake Daniels, the only openly gay professional footballer in English football, has described Jordan Henderson&#8217;s move to Saudi Arabia as a &#8220;slap in the face&#8221; after the midfielder&#8217;s previous work in support of LGBTQ+ rights.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels, a striker for Blackpool in England&#8217;s League One, spoke to the BBC about Henderson&#8217;s transfer, noting that the former Liverpool player sent him a message of support when he was released in May 2022.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (US)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was supportive and said, \u2018We\u2019re proud of what you did,\u2019\u201d Daniels said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSeeing him move to Saudi Arabia, it\u2019s kind of like it really slaps me in the face.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data- media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data- media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/><\/source><\/source><\/picture><figcaption class=\"photoCaption\">Jake Daniels became the first openly gay professional footballer in the UK since Justin Fashanu in 1990, when he came out. <cite>FC Blackpool<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cBut I guess money pays well, and money must mean more to people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Homosexuality is criminalized in Saudi Arabia, while human rights organization Amnesty International has described the Gulf country&#8217;s human rights record as &#8220;appalling&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Henderson was heavily criticized for his \u00a313 million ($16.3 million) move to Al Ettifaq, where he plays under former teammate Steven Gerrard, with England manager Gareth Southgate saying the disapproval was &#8221; understandable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with The Athletic responding to criticism in September, Henderson said he too could understand the &#8220;frustration&#8221; and &#8220;anger&#8221; within the LGBTQ+ community following his decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll I can say is I\u2019m sorry they feel that way,\u201d the 33-year-old added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My intention was never to hurt anyone. My intention was always to help causes and communities where I felt they had asked for my help.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I made this decision, I tried to look at it as if, without going there myself, we could all bury our heads in the sand and criticize different cultures and different countries from afar. But nothing &#8220;It&#8217;s impossible. It&#8217;s going to happen. Nothing&#8217;s going to change.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels said the decision to retire was &#8220;the best thing I ever did&#8221; and that he is playing &#8220;better&#8221; as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The 18-year-old added that he hopes to see more English players come forward, particularly at the highest level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would like to see another top footballer come out as gay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPremier League players obviously have a lot more pressure on them and so much more attention on them, but I just think getting more footballers out would be the <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/tag\/start\/\"   title=\"start\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">start<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henderson&#8217;s Saudi move a &#8216;slap in the face&#8217; &#8211; Jake Daniels\u060c Jake Daniels, the only openly gay professional footballer in English football, has described Jordan Henderson&#8217;s move to Saudi Arabia as a &#8220;slap in the face&#8221; after the midfielder&#8217;s previous work in support of LGBTQ+ rights. Daniels, a striker for Blackpool in England&#8217;s League One, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6289,2283,6287,5033,1162,791,6288],"class_list":["post-10942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-daniels","tag-face","tag-hendersons","tag-jake","tag-move","tag-saudi","tag-slap"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10944,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10942\/revisions\/10944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}