Football vs politics
Sunderland fans ‘march on London’, May 2025.
A friend was on holiday in France during the recent Arsenal vs PSG Champion League Final. He said the small town he was staying (nowhere near Paris) erupted in near-riotous celebrations, including drunkenness, fireworks, horn-honking of cars and youths jumping on cars. He had a few interesting points to make. Firstly, if Arsenal had won would anyone in the UK apart from Arsenal fans celebrate (being non-football fans, we genuinely didn’t know), and secondly, that this, not excessive, but still anti-social behaviour caused no condemnation at all in the local media the following day.
Though of course Paris did erupt in rioting, with hundreds injured and arrested, cars set on fire and flares being set off. It was condemned by the French government but exactly the same thing occurred last year when PSG also won so it couldn’t really be a surprise when it happened again. The BBC labelled the riots “wild celebrations”.
Still, though condemned, these kind of scenes are an accepted part of football celebrations, a passionate expression of national pride. (Imagine if football fans actually did something useful with all that pent-up passion and aggression, channelled it into something positive.)
You can certainly get away with a lot when it comes to football, a game involving grown men kicking a small ball around a field, and trying to put it into a net (I know, when I put it like that it just sounds stupid and pointless). There is a lot of money to be made from the sport: advertising, sponsorship, broadcasting rights, player sales, merchandising and alcohol (UK fans spent over £2.4 billion on beer alone during Euro 2024) are just some.
“Society is so boring, and our freedom so curtailed, that anything we do that isn’t spending money or making money, is frowned upon.”
I think society is so boring, and our freedom so curtailed, that anything we do that isn’t spending money or making money, is frowned upon.
In May 2025 I witnessed thousands of Sutherland football fans ‘spontaneously’ erupt into a gathering in Trafalgar Square, London. Though it had all the hallmarks of a riot or at least a protest, down to red canisters being set off (though to be fair this is usually tear gas set off by police to diffuse a riot; still, it had that look), chanting, gesturing and alcohol, it received almost no mention at all in the press or by outraged politicians. In fact, various football websites called the scene ‘joyous’ and ‘incredible’. Well, it was far from that, but, to be fair, I walked through it several times and I didn’t exactly feel threatened but it was somewhat tense and aggressive, mainly if you weren’t a Sunderland fan.
But let’s contrast this with other similar events, such as an also-spontaneous get together – or ‘link-up’ as the kids call it – of hundreds of school children in Clapham High Street in April this year to celebrate the start of the Easter Holidays. The press reporting was ridiculously over the top and entirely negative, with the Major of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, declaring it “appalling” and promising the teenagers responsible will "face the full force of the law". Yawn.
Other politicians, including Nigel Farage as well as the head of Marks and Spencer, also weighed in, but anything that far-right politicians or CEOs are against, I’m for. I thought it was great, in this age of kids glued to their phones and youth clubs and places to meet vastly diminished; you can just imagine their euphoria and maybe even be a little bit jealous.
Or there was the ‘illegal rave’ (which means no one was making any money from it, though it was on MOD land; still, it seemed pretty harmless), also in April this year, at a Devon beauty spot where police used ‘unethical’ force to close it down (they beat innocent people to the ground in full riot gear).
The thing about such events is politicians, police or even the media never look at why it’s happening, or if it’s less harm to just let it be. But no, it’s something that has to be stopped, immediately, it threatens the fabric of democracy, all that bollocks. It’s all a knee jerk reaction.
Mainly though, what football ‘wild celebrations’ get away with, as opposed to what peaceful protests can’t get away with, is just outrageous. You know, about things that actually matter, and aren’t about money or a dumb sport, like climate change or Palestinian rights. Retired professionals peacefully protesting, to be carried away by force, arrested and put in jail.
But this subjectivity in society is obvious. If I were to kill a person in the high street, I’d rightly be arrested and put in jail. But the US can bomb a school in Iran, kill 120 children and get away with it. Society makes no sense to me.
Talking of which, the far right have adopted the persona and tactics of football hooligans, with Le Monde describing Tommy Robinson (whose real name is the slightly posher Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon – he took the nom de guerre Tommy Robinson after a member of the Luton Town MIGs, a football hooligan crew; no one seems to know what he thinks of Yaxley-Lennon pinching his name) as ‘a racist hooligan turned mass mobilizer’. Him and Laurence Fox have been arrested countless times yet they’re still allowed to swan around, form political parties and spread hate. Unsurprisingly, there are many similarities between Tommy Robinson and Donald Trump.
Last month, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she wants to ban pro-Palestine marches (for spreading peace) but not ban Tommy Robinson marches (for spreading hate). I wonder if the events of recent days have made her change her mind (doubtful). Henry Nowak’s tragic murder is being used as a weapon purely to spread hate. Robinson’s rhetoric that the police are racist against whites is in spite of evidence showing Hampshire police are actually ‘five times likely to stop black people’. Still, when has truth ever got in the way of a good riot?