Political Football

 Warning! There will be some heavy topics in this essay including Racism, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Naziism, and Violence.

Association Football (called Soccer in select countries,) like many sports, is not immune from the world of politics. While many Britons and Americans lament the idea that politics don’t end outside the voting booth, many football clubs around the world, including the US and England, have rich political histories, some even existing solely because of political differences. From tiny clubs like the overtly Marxist AS Livorno to world powerhouses like Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, many teams have politics to thank for not only their creation but the existence of their “apolitical” fanbases today. 

The world of politics is ripe in football. Many popular clubs notable for their political base are Celtic FC and Rangers in Scotland; FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and essentially every other club in Spain; and Atalanta, AS Roma, Lazio, and Livorno in Italy are all extremely notable for how their political rivalries in fans have spilt into violence not only outside of the game but on the pitch too. Only a few of these clubs, namely Celtic and Livorno (possibly) have been overtly founded due through shared political ideas, but that hasn’t stopped many clubs from embracing their fan’s political identity, like FC St Pauli in Hamburg, Germany. And not all the politics are left-right, many things like independence and regional pride movements are big tent politics, where supporters of it are more behind the idea of self-governance than the type of governance. 

FC Barcelona has one of the earliest and most easily identifiable links to politics, with Catalan independence. Since the early days of the club, the identity of the team and supporters were Catalan, not Spanish. Under the monarchy, under which the club was founded in 1899, there was no issue with this, the Spanish constitution supported the autonomy of the region, but as World War I came and went turmoil started to brew. To briefly summarise, there was an interwar dictatorship, which was quickly followed by a short republic, near the end of which a left-wing coalition beat the liberal government supported by the far right. Barcelona, as the capital of Catalonia and a severely left-wing city, supported the republic and the newly elected left-wing government and the club identity of FCB aligned with those ideals, which would soon be called Spanish Republicanism. Meanwhile, in the military plans of a coup were started by an alliance that would be called the Nationalists. The coup failed initially but civil war broke out, which a few months into the general Franco soon controlled the west of the country, in lines that would define the politics in and out of football to this day. Franco was a fascist, supported by Hitler and Mussolini, while the Republicans didn’t have military support from anyone, due to a nonaggression pact that was signed by the future allies, and the inability of the soviets to reach Spain without direct war with Germany or Italy, As a result, Franco won the war. Throughout his reign, Catalan autonomy, identity, and language were suppressed, but FCB and their fans continued to fly the colours of the Catalan nation and chant in their language. CF Madrid, a club in the capital given the title of Real, meaning “Royal,” a signifier that the club was endorsed by the crown, became a favourite of Franco and a political tool on the international stage, being favoured by much of the government to the point of conspiracy domestically and given the ability to gain great success internationally, but this made Barcelona grow into an amazing giant for youth talent. But this didn’t stop Barcelona’s dominance. FCB won most of the 1940s and early 1950s, but soon Franco’s government started meddling in the affairs of sport, giving Real Madrid players faster paths to citizenship. This quickly lead to a huge rift between the already divided fans. While in the 60s and 70s Franco’s Real Madrid dominated La Liga and international competitions, Barcelona commanded the Copa del Rey. All these differences made the matchup extremely heated, quickly growing into the most-watched domestic matchup in the world. This game that happens at least twice annually often draws more viewers than the Superbowl, rivals the champions league final, and is one of the most recognisable events in the world, known as El Clasico (The Classic.) This standing only grew in the new century. While today the political strife that the clubs involved in is nearly gone, it is still shown in the fans and players. In the late 2000s, Real Madrid and Barcelona gained two players that quickly became to be considered the best. These two players show the identities of the club. Cristiano Ronaldo is a Portuguese player who was brought in from Manchester United under Madrid’s Galacticos programme. The Galactigos programme was a spending plan by Madrid to buy all of the world’s greatest players, and thus they spent over 1.5 BILLION dollars on player transfers, Ronaldo’s transfer being one of the biggest for a while. Ronaldo himself is a tall physical player, not without the skill but vain and with a huge ego. Messi, on the other hand, is a short, skilled player who relies mostly on agility and speed rather than physical strength. He was signed at the young age of 13 to the Barcelona Youth Teams and trained in the La Masia until he made his debut for the first team which played on until 2021, or 17 years. He had spent nearly 21 years at the club before he left in 2021. Messi rarely makes interviews or press statements, and only speaks Spanish. Very much embodies how these clubs are political and social opposites. This is not the only rivalry in Spain to be based on politics. Barcelona often supports Catalan independence while another less popular club from the city, Espanyol, was founded as a pro-Spain club (and is also a Real club.) Atletico Madrid represents a much more working-class sect of Madrid but still has strong rivalries with Barcelona and Athletic Club de Bilbao due to both teams respective Catalan and Basque independence support. Sevilla FC, a club from Andalusia, also has similar rivalries with Real Betis and both big Madrid clubs for similar reasons, they are the very left-wing and anti-Madrid government.

Another prime example of political football is another classic rivalry is a local derby in Scotland known as the Old Firm. This is a matchup between Glasgow’s, and Scottish football’s, biggest clubs Celtic FC and Rangers FC. This rivalry was heated from the moment Celtic club formed 15 years after Rangers. It has been 134 years since their first meeting in 1888, but nothing has changed. The issue with the rivalry is very much linked to the issues between Ireland, the UK, and ethnic Irish and Catholics in the UK. Celtic is a club founded by Irish Catholic immigrants in the city while Rangers have always been a club represented by protestant Scots and Ulster (Northern Irish) Scots. Rangers for a long time had an unspoken rule of not having Catholic players, a rule which was not done away with until 1989. Neither team is known to have a particularly Scottish identity, Celtic fans wave the Irish tricolour to represent their heritage while Rangers fans wave the Union Jack, however a majority of Celtic fans supported the independence referendum. The ethnoreligous divide has spilled into many other aspects. Rangers fans identify as British, support loyalists in Ireland, and are Tories, while Celtic fans identify themselves as Irish-Scots, support republicans in Ireland, and are Labour party or Socialists. Between the two clubs they have won the Scottish league 106/125 times. The last time neither won was the 1984/85 season. Celtic hold the record for longest title winning streak winning 9 times in a row twice, from 1965 until 1974 and from 2011 until 2020 (a shortened season due to COVID-19.) Rangers are the current title holder. Similar to El Clasico, the Old Firm has historically seen with fan violence whose rise and fall mirrored that of The Troubles but still persists to this day, and tensions do spill onto the pitch. Celtic fans, being the more politically extreme of the two groups have clashed with other right wing teams such as S.S. Lazio, who are extremely far right, and known as the team of Mussolini. The Old Firm, as a result of these factors, is known as the most expensive rivalry and derby, with many indicidents, vandalism, and the resulting need for heightened security costing police alone $3.25 million. 

 

^*S.S. stands for Societa Sportiva, while the club has fascist ties it is not related to the German SS.