IS IT arrogance, entitlement, stupidity or just plain naivety on the part of footballers and coaches who believe real fans do not jeer players? Harry Maguire’s comment after England had beaten Italy to qualify for EURO 2024 was so wide of the mark it was embarrassing. Equally, Gareth Southgate’s handling of the Jordan Henderson affair has been so ill-judged he should ask himself why supporters are turning against a player who has decided to move to Saudi Arabia to maximise the earning potential of the autumn of his playing days.
Just remember how flimsy the England squad were when it came to Qatar. Harry Kane said, in all sincerity, the players would “use our platforms” to make people aware of the way they were feeling about the World Cup hosts and their human rights record. They didn’t and we didn’t really hear any more from them.
Football is allowing itself to be used as a virtue signalling forum that includes players, clubs and causes. As a political mechanism, football is all too easily swayed from the path of protest and opinion. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been welcomed into the game’s establishment on the basis that they have vast sums of money and influence. Their cash allows clubs to benefit from an instant competitive differentiator. Most fans do not question things if men and women of substance suddenly turn up in the directors’ box, oversized scarves around their necks looking very uncomfortable. They see a regime with limitless cash as their path to glory, while the regime sees football as a way to attain soft power and tap into the world’s most popular sport.
At almost every football match, there’s a minute’s silence for something. Then there’s armbands, t-shirts, gestures of support and banners. There might be a plane flying overhead trying to send a message to 50,000 people below. This is football telling the audience what it should and shouldn’t put up with. Apparently, the England customer base should be perfectly content that one of the team’s players is earning a fortune in a blood-stained kingdom of limited tolerance.
The fans rarely turn their back on the game in protest, they are too worried their place in the queue will go elsewhere. Although the cost of tickets is too high, the demand means there is little chance of a radical overhaul of admission prices. The industry has the fans by the short and curlies, but the power really is in the hands of the crowd if they did but know it. Admittedly, the sweet spot in football revenue generation is broadcasting, but it is only so lucrative because of the position of the game in society. Take away the supporters and the value of TV rights deals would be hard to justify.
Although the fans don’t like being called customers, they are precisely that. As paying clients, they have the right to show their approval or disapproval of what they are watching. There is no script for football, it is largely unpredictable and the margin of success or failure is narrow. Quite often, the audience is disappointed, but within the confines of the game itself, they accept that you pay your money and take your chance. Many do not want to see their club or players trying to shape opinion. It is unreasonable to expect a huge crowd to completely align itself with predominantly left-wing, conservative or liberal attitudes. The bigger the crowd, the more diverse the opinion, although football does have a specific audience. But younger fans will certainly have a different mindset than legacy football supporters brought up on terraces, hooliganism, racist chants and homophobia.
Common sense reminds us some of the causes are indeed worthy ones. We know it is wrong to be racist, we know it is inappropriate to be sexist or homophobic. Take the narrative outside of what the crowd knows and understands and the message can get diluted or lost. The Jordan Henderson situation is very shaky ground because it can be interpreted as sheer hypocrisy and, given the profile his views received at Liverpool, poses questions about the legitimacy of other statements from footballers. In other words, it could damage football’s self-styled wish to position players as standard bearers.
The cynics among us could argue players attach themselves to charitable and social causes in order to improve their image. It is not inconceivable that “advisors” might suggest a bit of Corporate Social Responsibility could make a player more marketable. It happens in the corporate world, so why not football?
GAME OF THE PEOPLE 
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