Jordan Henderson has forgotten he is not immune to criticism

By IAN HERBERT[1]

Published: 17:00, 4 February 2025 | Updated: 17:00, 4 February 2025

It's hard to believe we're fast approaching five years since the beginning of those dark Covid days when there was so little ambient light and Jordan Henderson[2] seemed to provide some.

We were all grasping for evidence of humanity in football. Henderson put his voice to the Players Together initiative through which, with other captains, he encouraged donations to the NHS[3] and wound up with an MBE.

'If there's stuff in the future that might help people, I'm sure we'll look to do so,' he said after being named the Football Writers' Association Player of the Year around that time, little knowing how that future would take him into a PR death spiral.

It descended to another low on Sunday when he embarked on an extraordinary 15-minute press conference confrontation with a polite yet unflinching Ajax press corps in Amsterdam.

The journalists, not unreasonably, wanted to ask him about suggestions - which his employers at Ajax have done nothing to deny - that he had lobbied for a move to Monaco last month.

The exchange was excruciating, with Henderson staring down De Telegraaf's respected sports writer Mike Verweij during one particularly confrontational exchange in which he claimed that Dutch media reports were upsetting his family.

Jordan Henderson confronted reporters this week about reports of his failed move to Monaco

It is just five years since Henderson was lifting Liverpool's first league title for three decades

Henderson launched into a long tirade against journalists in the Netherlands

He insisted that Verweij's reporting was 'untrue', yet was evasive when asked to specify which parts. 'I'm not giving you details. I'm not here to give you details,' he moaned.

Someone suggested - without irony - that he should go to the club and say, 'hey, tell them the true story', for the sake of his own reputation.

'No,' he insisted during this tortuous process, hinting at an irritation with perennial suggestions in the Netherlands that he is paid too much.

Henderson actually does have grounds to defend himself.

The inside story of the Monaco affair is that Ajax were receptive to selling him, after a terrible last few seasons in which they have haemorrhaged cash.

One Dutch source tells me: 'They said to him, "You are our player who earns the most, so would you like to help us?" But they then tried to hide the fact.'

Henderson was receptive to a move to Monaco, with its attractive tax implications, but Ajax's coach Francesco Farioli insisted that the No 6 - the hinge in his defensively-minded system - must not leave this winter.

Henderson might contend that he has been a commodity for Ajax, who have done nothing to protect him from allegations that he agitated to leave.

All he had to do was provide some sense of this - say what happened - yet his barbs and passive aggression turned that press conference into a PR car crash which has left the Dutch divided in their opinion of a player, for whom Amsterdam was a very useful port in a storm after his lucrative move to Saudi Arabia blew up.

Henderson has not been universally welcomed by Ajax, having joined from Saudi side Al Ettifaq

The 34-year-old used to be an England stalwart but has been frozen out since last year

Rafael van de Vaart, now a pundit, has since called Henderson 'a piece of s***,' while Het Algemeen Dagblad columnist Sjoerd Mossou extemporised on fakery in his discussion of the former Liverpool[4] captain.

'Some people are real and other people are fake, but there is an extra layer,' he wrote. 'People who play a role to flatter others. The calculators, the actors and the unreliable.' Ouch.

Some of the commentary is unfair, but Henderson's high and mighty tone certainly brought it on himself, in a country where views on the standard of his own football are mixed.

'It's 50-50. Many say he doesn't bring that much to Ajax,' says the source.

He certainly did play well in the vital 2-1 win on Sunday over rivals Feyenoord, who they are engaged in a title fight with.

Victimised though he might feel, Henderson's disastrous and hypocritical move to Saudi in 2023 has been no more forgotten by the Dutch than the British.

Mossou reminded his readers at the weekend of how, 'in England, Henderson also played the socially involved, ideal son-in-law for years.

'He presented himself as a loyal enthusiast, a true club player and the empathetic figurehead for LGBTQ[5] rights and the British gay community. Then he went to play football for Al Ettifaq.'

Those who advise Henderson would do well to tell him to show some humility

Henderson led Liverpool to the Champions League title in 2019, one of seven trophies he won with the Reds

It feels like a lifetime since Henderson was lifting trophies for Liverpool

Those who advise Henderson - and are presumably being well paid for doing so - might usefully tell him that after the notoriety of that Saudi business, with its terrible optics, a little humility and respect in the public sphere would go a long way to improving his reputation.

He isn't the only player appointed an MBE in the Covid era whose fortunes have been in a tail spin, of course.

Marcus Rashford's work on food poverty gave him the structure and purpose he needed in his life and exposed him to positive influences.

Those professing to 'advise' him have ensured those influences are shut out. He looks a lost soul now.

Henderson is not lost.

A move from the Netherlands, and another big pay-day, seems likely this summer and he will retire a very rich man.

But it's not too late to appreciate that an MBE and garlands of praise do not immunise you from the scrutiny and questions which come with football's vast salaries and profile.

It's been five years since all that. It feels like a lifetime ago.

The opening Six Nations[6] weekend brought me and many others those glorious first knockings of Spring, on a mild, blue-sky day in Dublin.

But it was something referee Paul Williams said, picked up on the audio feed in the Stade de France on Friday which was the annual reminder of why rugby union occupies a different space to football, a sport where officials are considered almost sub-human.

Josh Adams was given a sharp reminder by referee Paul Williams of how to treat officials

Wales' Josh Adams had given Williams the benefit of his opinion on a decision in the first half and the referee was not impressed.

'I will not have your players speaking and shouting at me like that,' he told Welsh captain Jac Morgan. 'When the referee has made his decision, you can't go screaming in his face.'

Morgan nodded, accepting this without a murmur.

In line with a campaign of coercion from my children to become fitter and healthier, I've begun playing squash with my eldest for the first time in over 20 years.

When we last played - him as an 11-year-old - I let him win, much to his irritation, I later discovered. This time I have bought a pair of rather-too-white new squash shoes.

We've met to play seven sets in each of the past four weeks.

The aggregate score is in his favour - 27-1 - and I can't lay a racket on much.

The bicycle has come out of the shed again and I have been looking at running shoes.

Very small steps.

Carlisle manager Mike Williamson has been sacked with the club bottom of League Two

It was at motorway services on the M1 in May 2023, travelling home from the match which saw Leicester City[7] relegated to the Championship, that I met a family of Carlisle fans whose side had just beaten Stockport County in the League Two play-off final.

They radiated happiness and we talked for half an hour or so.

I've often thought of them during the team's terrible slide of the past few years which this week saw the club, five points adrift at the foot of League Two, sack their manager Mike Williamson, having bought buying 12 players in the transfer window[8].

Some gamble.

Fans will moan about not getting the players they want, but that really is life on football's cliff edge.

References

1. ^ IAN HERBERT (www.dailymail.co.uk)
2. ^ Jordan Henderson (www.dailymail.co.uk)
3. ^ NHS (www.dailymail.co.uk)
4. ^ Liverpool (www.dailymail.co.uk)
5. ^ LGBTQ (www.dailymail.co.uk)
6. ^ Six Nations (www.dailymail.co.uk)
7. ^ Leicester City (www.dailymail.co.uk)
8. ^ transfer window (www.dailymail.co.uk)