7 Most Political Football Clubs

Although FIFA, UEFA and various other governing bodies do their utmost to keep a barrier between football and politics, many clubs are inextricably tied to a certain set of political ideas. In almost all cases, this boils down to one of three positions, either being fervently left-wing, staunchly right-wing or passionately supporting a separatist cause. It's often the case that when you have two rivals within a city, one will identify as the people or workers club and will tend to be more left-leaning whilst the other will be seen as the club of the wealthy or of establishment and be more conservative. I have always remained very much apolitical on this channel for obvious reasons, but purely when it comes to the politics of football clubs and their supporters, I would suggest one side is clearly more toxic. You don't tend to get a group of centre-right ultras chanting at opposition fans about sensible fiscal policy or the merits of the death penalty as a means of deterrent. No, clubs with well-known right-wing ultras tend to operate strongly within the areas of fascism, racism and homophobia, whilst more liberal clubs often end up that way purely by means of protest and disassociation from the far right. There are literally thousands of politically associated football clubs and picking out which are the most political clearly can't be an exact science. I've tried to include clubs from all political aisles, right, left and separatist and if nothing else, hopefully I have at least picked out some interesting examples. Here are my seven most political football clubs. AC Ammonia. AC Ammonia and Apoel Nicosia are perfect examples of the political divergence between two teams within a single city. Ammonia were actually formed in the late 1940s after Apoel sent a telegraph to the Hellenic Association of Amateur Athletics complaining of communist mutiny during the Greek Civil War. A number of left-leaning Apoel players subsequently distanced themselves from the club, or indeed they were actually expelled themselves, and ended up joining Nicosia's newest club AC Ammonia. So both Ammonia and Apoel were politically charged from that day on and such tendencies never subsided. The two clubs are the two most successful in Cyprus, with Ammonia having dominated in the 1970s and 80s, whilst Apoel have reasserted their dominance over the last decade. It would be fair to say Ammonia supporters are more fervent in their political views than their enemies, with 80% of Ammonia fans aligning themselves with the AKEL in a recent survey, which is a Marxist-Leninist organisation, and the second biggest political party in Cyprus. Ammonia supporters have strong ties with fellow left-leaning clubs like Standard Liège and Apoel Tel Aviv, both of whom made my shortlist but don't feature in the final seven. The club's best-known supporters, Group Gate 9, are also renowned for their left-wing positions, and left-wing imagery such as banners bearing the face of Che Guevara can often be spotted on terraces at Ammonia games. Zenit St. Petersburg We will be slaloming from left to right throughout this seven, and in sixth place is a side whose right-wing support seems to have grown over the years. Unlike Ammonia, Zenit wasn't founded on an already presupposed political principle, and for most of Europe, the extreme views of certain sections of the Zenit fanbase has only really become clear over the last decade. Given that the city of St. Petersburg has long had a strong sense of nationalism though, along with the fact that Zenit are owned and bankrolled by the state-owned multi-billion dollar company Gazprom, this perhaps shouldn't come as any great surprise. Back in 2012, Zenit supporters group Landskrona sent an open letter or manifesto to the club demanding that Zenit refrain from buying any black or homosexual players. This demand for an entirely white heterosexual eleven was defended by Landskrona, following widespread condemnation as not racist or homophobic, no of course not, but instead as Zenit looking to maintain an important tradition. Silly me, good thing they cleared that up, I must admit I was one of those who thought it was a teeny bit racist. Throwing bananas at black players obviously isn't racist either, just a good old fashioned Zenit tradition, fun for all the family. Since then, Zenit have continued to be marred by incidents of racism. A banner proclaiming there is no black in Zenit's colours has been cited many times, along with monkey chants and KKK headgarments. Not all Zenit fans are emboldened by the ultra xenophobic wing of the club, but even liberal Zenit fans can see that the sentiments resonate with far more casual supporters than one can feel comfortable about. The city of Saint Petersburg is just one big juxtaposition in so many respects as a cultural capital of arts, music and free trade, whilst maintaining rigid nationalistic, xenophobic and intolerant sentiments in large parts. In many ways, Zenit are no exception, but the club now has a pretty sordid reputation on the international stage. Although there are countless examples of left and right wing football clubs, the really fervent ultra groups in particular do tend to harbour more far right sentiments. That is particularly true of Italian football, where the likes of Tristina, Verona, Inter Milan and to a certain extent Juventus, Ascoli and Padova all have rather right wing ultras. AS Livorno don't stand alone within the Italian game as a club with a left wing fanbase, but certainly no club wears its left wing political views more proudly than Livorno. Their home ground, now named in honour of former starman Armando Picchi, was originally named in honour of Mussolini's daughter, Ederciano Mussolini. This was never fitting for the city of Livorno, which has always had a cosmopolitan left wing population, or at least since the city was part of the Republic of Florence. The workers of Livorno have long had a strong sense of camaraderie against their wealthy bosses, and when the As the far right began to associate strongly with football clubs in the 1970s and 80s, the far left sentiment could be felt more strongly at AS Livorno. The city itself continues to elect far left politicians, Livorno fans regularly brandish Soviet and Cuban imagery on the terraces rather than Italian, and they drew the ire of the Italian public when a group of supporters booed during a tribute to Italian soldiers killed in Iraq. Livorno's fan groups maintained the booing was directed towards Italy's participation in the war, but it was unsurprisingly unpopular with men. Lazio. We might as well go from the most left wing club in Italy to the most right wing, although there are plenty of right wing clubs in Italy, none come close to SS Lazio. Lazio was said to be the club of Benito Mussolini, although the Italian dictator actually sought to unite the major Rome based clubs, to form a rivalry with the Milan and Turin based sides, a proposal which Lazio firmly rejected. Mussolini may have been shot and hung from a metal girder back in 1945, but support for him and a rising neo-fascist sentiment has long been felt on the terraces at the Stadio Olimpico. Lazio fans are the most violent and racist group of supporters in Italy, and there's a fair bit of competition on both those fronts. Back in 1998, Lazio fans unveiled an antisemitic banner in a game against Rome which read Auschwitz is your country, the ovens are your homes. Roman salutes, monkey chants and depictions of Mussolini have all been common tendencies of Lazio's so-called ultras. More recently, they mass produced images of Anne Frank wearing a Roma shirt, which the braindead perpetrators described as mere mockery and teasing, as well as denying the notion that there was anything racist about monkey chants. In the summer, Fabrizio Piscitelli, who led Lazio's most extreme supporters group, was shot dead on a bench in the city of Rome. Sankt Pauli. I spoke about Sankt Pauli on this channel in reference to their rivalry with Hansa Rostock recently, who have a large number of far-right and neo-Nazi ultras, but whilst Rostock missed out on this seven, Sankt Pauli had to feature. At the start of the 1980s, Sankt Pauli was one of the most popular clubs in Italy,