I finally landed a TV job, or at least I thought I had..
Do you know what came back today?
Bet365 (the TV company's main sponsors) have rejected my profile… | 234 comments on LinkedIn
People often say to me that it’s great players can now open up about their struggles.
Can they really? I certainly wouldn’t encourage it
I’d honestly say the exact same about mental health. When a player opens up everybody will praise them for their bravery and honesty in the moment.
But the minute a discussion about something like being captain/crucial penalties comes up you can guarantee they’ll be a lot of people questioning wether they’re mentally strong enough.
That is mental health in general. A company will often hire a person with mental health problems to be seen as inclusive but as soon as they realise that PTSD and BPD are not some random letters but genuine diagnoseses that greatly affect their new emplyee they want nothing to with you :/
You can also say the same about any support for equality. Look at Hendo, shit that he went to Saudi which somewhat goes against his support, but at least he came out and talked about stuff in the first place, it doesn’t remove the fact that he supports lgbtq+ equality, isn’t homophobic, and is inclusive. There’s countless high profile players who have never made a statement either way on lgbtq+ equality etc and could just be homophobic, they don’t get jumped on for going to Saudi though. I’d rather have people speaking in the first place and for that reason I’ll always defend Hendo (somewhat, the way he’s dealt with it has been a bit shit).
But to get to the point no young players going to look at this and think, yeah it’s really worth speaking up for what I believe in, incase it goes south. And that’s all because of how everyone has treated Jordan.
I’d honestly say the exact same about mental health. When a player opens up everybody will praise them for their bravery and honesty in the moment.
But the minute a discussion about something like being captain/crucial penalties comes up you can guarantee they’ll be a lot of people questioning wether they’re mentally strong enough.
People laughed about Paul Mcgrath saying he’s won MOTM whilst drunk and he’s talking about it deadly serious about what a serious issue he had.
He was suicidal and played games with bandages on his wrists from slitting them.
I feel comparing the mentality to take a penalty vs mental health is weird
That is mental health in general. A company will often hire a person with mental health problems to be seen as inclusive but as soon as they realise that PTSD and BPD are not some random letters but genuine diagnoseses that greatly affect their new emplyee they want nothing to with you :/
You can also say the same about any support for equality. Look at Hendo, shit that he went to Saudi which somewhat goes against his support, but at least he came out and talked about stuff in the first place, it doesn’t remove the fact that he supports lgbtq+ equality, isn’t homophobic, and is inclusive. There’s countless high profile players who have never made a statement either way on lgbtq+ equality etc and could just be homophobic, they don’t get jumped on for going to Saudi though. I’d rather have people speaking in the first place and for that reason I’ll always defend Hendo (somewhat, the way he’s dealt with it has been a bit shit).
But to get to the point no young players going to look at this and think, yeah it’s really worth speaking up for what I believe in, incase it goes south. And that’s all because of how everyone has treated Jordan.