Overseas Fans As Allies In The Collective Supporter Movement

COLLECTIVE momentum is growing within English football support as fans try to reclaim or hang on to the game at the top level, which has drifted into the hands of the ownership class of billionaire capitalists and state ownership.

During the past year or so, a fan-led movement across English football has protested against owners and governing bodies exploiting fan loyalty. It’s a movement that is still growing and has proved vital in securing ticket price freezes at some clubs and putting pressure on those owners who are still finding excuses to raise prices. 

This naturally involves references to the importance of local supporters, the local identity of a team and the regions from where these sporting institutions arose. 

These native attributes are vital for retaining football clubs’ links to their communities and history — the very things that made them what they are today, and the things the owners often use as selling points. 

The clubs have been built on this local support and footprint (they affect everyone in the surrounding area regardless of whether they are involved in football) but that generational regular match-going support is now being exploited.

Though it’s right that the local support, that is the lifeblood of a club and its identity, is prioritised in these protests, none of this should be a sleight on overseas fans who support these clubs from their own countries, towns and cities, or arrive from across the world to attend games. 

This kind of support should not be discouraged or targeted as part of the problem.

Fans from other countries are attracted to clubs’ local supporter culture and history. The majority would share in the sentiments that these clubs need to retain such identity and would support local fans in their protests for fairer treatment. 

Some will have seen similar issues arise with the clubs in their own regions and are well-placed to provide solidarity and in some cases useful ideas on the back of their own experiences.

Foreign fans are drawn to clubs not for their latest brand campaign, but for their idiosyncrasies and differences to the next club. It’s an innate branding that owners — custodians as they should be — should look to protect, not erase in favour of some homogenised sports business strategy after which one club cannot be determined from the next.

Football developed organically at a local level in cities and towns across the world, sometimes down to very specific organisations, workplaces, neighbourhoods or communities within these localities.

The sport became a representation of these very specific groups or regions on a national and eventually for some, global scale.

Players would come from different parts of a country or region to play for the clubs that turned professional. Many successful English teams in the early days of the professional game would boast numerous Scottish players, for example. 

Some teams, such as Internazionale in Milan, were even formed on the back of their international flavour or their willingness to welcome foreign players when others wouldn’t. 

Others, such as the Bilbao-based Athletic Club, retained relatively strict limits on the region from which their players could originate — in Athletic’s case, the Basque region.

Some teams, whether through success or through foreign tours (which were more common when less official international competition existed), increased their reputations internationally and attracted global support on the back of that.

The origin of these teams, their history, and their character, is a big draw for like-minded fans around the world who appreciate the values created when clubs form organically. 

Success can then shine a larger spotlight on some of these clubs. 

From Boca Juniors to Barcelona, Ajax to Al Ahly, these kinds of clubs and the culture around them attract fans from outside the cities and countries in which they originated.

Football is an avenue for learning about numerous topics and becoming more familiar with and understanding of different cultures.

The sport introduces us to the world at a very local level, from Buenos Aires barrios to industrial European towns. 

The game also raises global economic and geopolitical topics that might not otherwise be on the radar, as well as awareness of workers’ rights, labour migration, and global economic systems.

Overseas fans should be an ally in the struggle faced by local supporters in their battles against flagrant and negligent capitalist ownership, not a group to be alienated.

The collective movement of football supporters against exploitative club ownership is stronger with the support of overseas fans who grew attached to these clubs thanks to the very cultural identities local fans are fighting to conserve.