Graham Daniels: The Christians in Sport director helping elite footballers find Jesus

Growing up in the Welsh Valleys, Graham Daniels attended chapel from birth – and checked out of church as soon as he could. His journey back to Christianity was the perfect preparation for the job he does now. 

It was on the way back from a school cricket match when the team captain shared his faith with 14-year-old Daniels. A few years younger than the others, Daniels was new to the squad and knew no one else. So, rather than hanging out with the older boys on the journey home, his captain chose to sit with him instead and make sure he was OK. 

Daniels has never forgotten that kindness. Hearing a profession of faith from someone he looked up to impacted him deeply. Over the next six years, Daniels left school, went to university and started playing football for Cardiff City FC. Then, after he graduated, he moved to Cambridge United. 

Aged 21, he travelled north to play against Newcastle United, the club of his boyhood hero, Kevin Keegan. Cambridge lost that day, but on the scoresheet, alongside his hero, was Daniels’ own name. It was a dream come true.

But the next day, after a night out on the town, Daniels awoke with only one thought on his mind: Wow, was that it? What if I was playing at the very, very top level? Would the anti-climax still be like this? It is an existential crisis that many elite athletes face at some point: Can success in sport really bring fulfilment? Can anything – other than God – sustain the weight of the pressure that comes from the human search for meaning and purpose? 

That crisis led Daniels to buy a Bible, and to recall the model of Christianity he had admired in the boy at school who did not seem weird or irrelevant. Six months later, Daniels became a Christian. And six months after that, news of his baptism reached the man who had recently founded Christians in Sport. In 1984, between them, they knew of just four professional footballers who professed Christ – one of whom was Daniels himself.

Now, 40 years on, the cultural moment feels significantly different. A new openness to Christianity is sweeping through Gen Z, and the proliferation of Christian footballers speaking about their faith seems more like a tidal wave than a slow turning. Yet among a generation of sports stars who live in the glare of social media and are paid more than most could ever imagine, Daniels believes the job of faithfully declaring the hope of the gospel is more vital than ever. 

We’ve seen numerous high-profile athletes being incredibly open about their Christian faith in recent years – particularly in the Premier League and at this year’s World Cup. What is the impact of that in wider society?

It is a huge cultural phenomenon. When I became a Christian, I couldn’t find a single person in the football league who would even say they went to church. 

The advent of the Premier League in 1992 brought a huge number of overseas players [to the UK] who weren‘t embarrassed about being a Christian, and that changed the dressing room culture. There were some brilliant role models in the 90s and noughties. Gavin Peacock and Cyril Regis were professing faith, and teammates saw that you could sustain a top-level career and follow Christ. There was a tipping point somewhere in the 2000s but, in the last five or six years, it’s become almost like a crushing wave. We’ve recently collected data from the top six tiers of men’s football in England and Wales – 75% of clubs have Christians in their first team and 40% have Bible studies led by players themselves. 

For football-mad young women and men, seeing their heroes unashamedly professing Christ is a culture shifter.

As a young Christian and a professional footballer, was it hard to follow Jesus?

When you’re doing it, you don’t particularly think about how hard it is. I was just thrilled to know Christ! It changed my life and made me think about what I did every day and what God wanted from me, why He’d given me that gift. 

In my 50s, I did a PhD on the lives of 15 professional footballers who met Jesus in the 90s – including Gavin and Cyril. That research reflected my own life, and it’s pretty universal really. 

Number one is existential fulfilment and security. For every World Cup superstar, there are 15 players in the lower leagues who started out with them. Clubs promise young kids the world, and then injury, suspension or deselection hit you. Fulfilment diminishes or disappears. You become insecure because you’re scared of managers or of not playing well enough. But when people meet Christ, there’s a bedrock of security. You might still feel hurt or scared, but there’s a deep fulfilment and security, even when you’re injured or get dropped. 

You’re not a winner, you just win games. You win by knowing Christ

Secondly, once the Holy Spirit comes in, and you know what God’s word says, it becomes increasingly difficult not to bring your backstage life, front stage. This has been the great testimony in changing rooms around the country. You have to put Christ at the centre. You’ve got to go to work and say: “I’m not doing that” or: “I’m going to do it, no matter what anyone says.” This is authenticity. 

Finally, all the men told stories of a player coming to them and saying [something like]: “I know you’re a Christian. I think my girlfriend’s seeing somebody, and if I tell anyone, the coach might think I’m not able to play on Saturday because I’m too down about it, and the boys will take the mickey. But I can talk about it with you. Would you pray for me?”

Existential security and fulfilment becomes integrated into authentic behaviour – not perfect, obviously – to the point where close colleagues think: I can trust them. That’s what happened to me. Boys in my generation were bullied for saying there were things they wouldn’t do on tour. Now, 40 years on, it’s normal to be a Christian, to see people praying on the pitch at the World Cup. God has done incredible things.

One of the dangers is that it’s easy to profess, and to post on social media, without having depth or discipleship. That’s something we must work out how to deal with through the local church.

How does Christians in Sport help with that?

In my era, you couldn’t play for a professional football team until you were 14. Now you can be signed at six. So, we help mums and dads to think biblically, theologically and practically about managing that. We run university groups around the country, and camps for highly competitive children who will flourish if they can learn to integrate sport and faith. We then work through the whole elite sport system as well. Our priority is: How can we integrate a new Christian into a local church where they can be cared for week in, week out? If they’re away for nine months every year on the track and field tour or the tennis tour, no local church can do that, so [Christians in Sport] will send somebody with them. That’s the distinctive parachurch aspect, but the goal is the same: Can we lead someone to Christ? And if they’re a Christian, can we encourage them in their faith, and get them into a great local church that will develop them as a Christian athlete? 

Is it possible for a famous sports star to be part of a normal local church?

That’s a really good question. Someone like Bukayo Saka, at Arsenal, is in the church he grew up in. So even though there will still be fandom, and people will find out he’s there, he’ll still be viewed as the child who grew up in the church, and so you’re kind of protected. 

Boys in my generation were bullied. But now it’s normal to see people praying on the pitch at the World Cup

The real danger is making somebody Jesus’ poster child, especially when they’re a young person in their 20s. That’s why Christians in Sport wouldn’t run a feature on a famous young athlete. 

You experienced an emptiness that you were expecting success to fill. That then led you to Christ. Is that a common path among elite athletes?

Andre Agassi writes in his autobiography Open (Harper) about winning Wimbledon for the first time: “A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close.” 

I think that sums it up. When you attain it, it can’t satisfy you, because even after a win, you’ve got to do it again. People don’t realise that the weight of winning is heavy. This is often when people come to Christ. You don’t want to manipulate that situation, but [as a Christian] you can say: “Well, I know somebody who loves you whether you win or lose and will never turn His back when you fail.” It is the most fantastic thing to tell athletes. It’s pure relief.

One of the things we don’t talk about, however, is the reality that we’ve alienated ourselves from God. [That emptiness is] more than therapeutic anxiety; it’s actually about our rejection of God and our own self-sufficiency. Sometimes I’m tempted not to mention God’s righteousness and that we will one day stand before Him. 

I find myself having to correct my theological framework, making it clear that the reason you feel this void, and don’t have the fulfilment you seek, is because human beings have turned their back on their creator. And that’s a dangerous thing to do. The Bible is clear that the only way to return to a relationship with Him – and, consequently, get that therapeutic boost – is to trust in the One who came in human form to pay the cost and bring reconciliation. 

Leaving out that underlying analysis of the sin that leads us to idolatry – that’s the disease of self-sufficiency. So, I have to catch myself from ignoring things that people might not ever have heard, so they don’t end up with a half-baked Christianity. It’ll make you feel good, but it says nothing about objective truth.

Is it harder to suggest to someone who has money and fame that they might be missing something in their life?

My hunch is that it’s universally difficult. To give the upside of meeting Christ is not hard. To say that the reason He had to come in the first place is because there is a judgement to come, that right is right and wrong is wrong, and so somebody has to correct what’s broken and save you – that’s hard to say to any human being. It makes us uncomfortable. 

The vocation of a Christian athlete is Ephesians 2:10. Play and change the world. When you cry, God will use it, and when you smile with joy, God will use it

The number one thing is watching the other person. Where are they at? What are they asking? Do they want to talk or do they want to listen? Real Christian relationships are other-person focused. It’s about trust and vulnerability, which can never happen in a one-off conversation anyway. But the key thing is not to bottle it after seven or eight or ten conversations – or 40 for me!

Arsenal player Eberechi Eze famously said that he prayed God would help him score a hat-trick against Tottenham – and he did. Can Christians pray for victory? 

Of course you can pray to win, but how does God answer that prayer? If there are seven Christians on the Arsenal team and eight on the Chelsea team, is it a numeric thing? How does God decide? 

Paul writes two things in Ephesians 2:8-9: “It is by grace you have been saved through faith…not from yourselves…not by works, so that no one can boast.” Without a saviour who underpins everything, you’re dislocated, but you can only have that relationship by Him giving something to you – and you have to take it. We often say to players: “Everything you’ve done so far in life has been an achievement; you have to achieve, that’s the job. But the Christian faith is received, not achieved. You can’t earn it, and you can’t lose it. It’s a gift.”

That’s a massive shift. And verse 10 continues: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” At this point I’d say to Eze: “God is full of joy when He sees you play. He loves it because He made you for it. He wants that dressing room to have somebody like you in it, who knows you’re loved whether you win or lose. Compete. Be the best you can be. But remember this: with God, no one’s a loser.”

You lose more than you win in sport, but the balancing act is being able to say: “Lord Jesus, I’ve lost today, but I’m not a loser, because I’ve got You.” You’re not a winner either, actually, you just win games. You win by knowing Christ. So, think about praying for victory in the light of that. This is what you should pray: “Lord Jesus, let me know how much You love me, and use this game to bring me closer to You. In my joy, I thank You for my gifts, and in my despair, I remember that You love me, whether I win or lose, and You’re always there.”

I say to players: “If you know Christ, you’re not scared to survive, you’re safe to serve.” And when your heart’s breaking because you missed a penalty, you can say: “Jesus, give me the strength to love when I feel like crying or running away.” 

God will not waste a thing. He will use the brokenness and the joy of what you love the most. Where else is He going to change you as a disciple, if not in the things in your life that would be your idols without Christ? 

The vocation of a Christian athlete is Ephesians 2:10. Play and change the world. When you cry, God will use it, and when you smile with joy, God will use it, because you’ll always have the bandwidth to put others before yourself if you let the Holy Spirit run things. So, pray for that instead of winning. 

Hear the full conversation on The Profile podcast, or watch on YouTube at youtube.com/officialpremiertv