Football and the Left, a Tale of Gentrification and Commercialisation
While football seasons are coming to a close in the rest of Europe here in Ireland football is only now returning from its Coronavirus hiatus. I for one am personally hyped to see the return of 1–1 draws between teams of semi-pro athletes in front of only slightly less empty than usual stadiums (I’m being wholly genuine when I say this). However thanks to the League of Ireland’s hiatus I have been reflecting many issues relating to it, primarily my local team Bohemians FC and their new “Refugees Welcome” away jersey.
With a message that you would be hard pressed to find any objections to released in collaboration with Amnesty International and the profits going to Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI) this is should be a simple wholesome story. While that is largely true and I fully support what the campaign stands for (although I didn’t actually buy a jersey) I can’t help but feel like there is something more cynical going on here.
Some background for those out of the loop, for a variety of reasons League of Ireland has never been hugely profitable (ex-FAI CEO John Delaney once referred to it as “the difficult child of Irish football”). However, over the past few years things have been looking up with match attendances steadily growing and the League’s fan base expanding. In this same time period Bohs’ native Phibsborough and neighbouring north inner city communities have become increasingly gentrified. For example, Stoneybatter (a former working class community turned hipster Mecca) was named as Ireland’s “coolest” neighbourhood by Time Out in 2019.
What does this have to do with Bohs’ new jersey you ask? Well since the rise in inner city gentrification I’ve noticed Bohs playing up their left wing credentials much more. Not to say the club’s supporters weren’t left-leaning before left wing ideals and republicanism are widely popular in the local area, which is home to many leftist politicians such as Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald. However, in recent years the club itself has leaned into these views much more. I fear that club’s higher ups hope to turn it into an Irish St. Pauli (a St. Paddy if you will), a left wing brand divorced from the club’s football using politics as a marketing gimmick. In a way it is a genius move to use leftist aesthetics to appeal to the sensibilities of the mostly progressive gentrifiers in an attempt to expand the fan base as he traditional local residents/supporters become priced out of their homes and unable to regularly attend matches.
Bohs’ attempt to brand themselves as the “leftist” team may be working. On twitter many users whose output is largely political and have shown no interest in football (let alone League of Ireland) before were quick to buy the jersey and let everybody know about it. Even a few left wing politicians have posted pictures of them wearing the jersey for everyone to see, among them Labour TD Aodhán Ó’Ríordáin and independent Senator Lynn Ruane (hailing from areas associated with rival Dublin teams Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers respectively).
So far this essay has been somewhat scaremongering on my part (tHe mIdDle CLaSs WoKieS aRe RuiNiNg mY tEAm) but now I’m finally getting to the point of the essay, the aesthetic and attempted class shift at Bohs is an analogy for the broader Irish left. Co-option of leftist politics by careerists and businesses in an attempt to be performatively woke is an all too common problem for the modern left the world over. While Boh’s jersey raised money for a good cause its primary focus was marketing for the club and to gain new supporters among left wing activists, many of whom only got the jersey to virtue signal to their followers.
The rise of online slactivist influencers and “woke” brands are a hindrance to the left due to them acting solely in self interest and their tendency to push working class voices either to the back or out of left wing movements. We have seen how this demographic has caused a riff between working class and left wing parties in the USA and UK. Until recently support for the left among celebrities, businesses and the middle class was alien to Ireland but that has begun to change in recent years. I fear these people and changing perceptions of the left will either alienate the working class from politics (see 2019 Irish local and European elections) or even worse drive them towards the right (see 2019 UK general election).
A more close to home example of middle class gentrification hurting the working class left took place in Boh’s local Dublin Central constituency this February. This past general election was huge success (but still a loss) for the left and Dublin Central should have at the centre of the left wing wave. I haven’t got much to say about he first three of the constituency’s four TDs, Mary Lou McDonald and Paschal Donohoe are the constituency’s primary left and right candidates respectively, and Neasa Hourigan was elected as part of the Green Party’s pan-class surge due to environmental fears. But the battle for the fourth and final seat epitomises the gentrification of both the left and Dublin’s north inner city. Hot off of successfully campaigning to sell former social housing O’Deaveney Gardens to a private investment firm Bertie Ahern-backed neoliberal, womaniser and overly active Twitter poster Gary Gannon defeated working class hero Christy Burke, Dublin City Council’s longest serving Councillor, a long time socialist and republican activist and ex-PIRA member. This was bad if couldn’t already tell and gentrification of Dublin’s north inner city was the central cause of this loss for the working class.
The Irish left has made great progress over the past few months and is on the brink huge electoral success. However, if a left wing government is to truly act on behalf of the working class it must be composed of genuine activists from those communities, not liberals and careerists appropriating our causes for personal gain. Fighting for migrants rights involves on the ground activism and legislative change, not buying a football jersey (not to wholly undermine Bohemians’ good work).
Finally the true leftist working class stance on Bohs’ jersey is that the unreleased Bob Marley one from last year was well better.
