Whose ‘Home’ is it Coming to?: Supporting England in the World Cup

Not having my home country in the FIFA men’s World Cup final gives me the freedom to adopt another team to support in the tournament. I have been a Germany fan since when studied German as a foreign language at school. This is an arbitrary reason, but no less arbitrary than supporting the country of one’s birth or domicile. Following Germany’s embarrassing early exit this year, I can only fall back on the team that I drew in a sweepstake that is still in the competition, which to my continuing amazement is England. It is a strange feeling to be rooting for a side that fancies itself as having an unrequited rivalry with my team from the last 12 years. But no matter how easy it is to get behind any team over the course of the tournament, I cannot see myself joining in the euphoric chants or excessive memes of ‘it’s coming home’ that are starting to get tiresome now. I cannot feel part of this.

This is not about English patriotism, or at least not overtly: as much as public sentiment or political optics will try to appropriate the success of the team’s campaign or unity of its supporters for ideological ends, I see clear demarcations between the football team, the country, the nation, and the government. Support or loyalty for one does not entail the same for another. This is about not being part of the same people. The support for the English football team, and the perceived camaraderie and togetherness of the fan culture, is what Benedict Anderson defines in the eponymous book as an ‘imagined community’: it is ‘imagined’ as individuals believe in a sense of communion and solidarity with fellow supporters whom they have never met, and it is a ‘community’ inasmuch as ‘regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail […], the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’ (6-7). Eric Hobsbawm, in Nations and Nationalisms Since 1780, notes that international sporting events like the Olympic Games and the football World Cup are occasions for ‘competitive national self-assertion’ when the ‘imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people’ (143). As much as it is possible for me to adopt and believe in the same imaginary of the football team, the actual inequalities and exploitation prevalent in the country will always reinforce one of the more troublesome aspects of this imagined community, that it is ‘limited’ by ‘finite, if elastic, boundaries’ (Anderson 7): boundaries that demarcate ‘others’ through structures and institutions that exclude immigrants or foreigners from being part of or welcome within this country.

In a recent article, Giles Fraser suggests that people like me who abstain from or are critical of such forms of imagined community ‘will never get the World Cup’ because we do not understand the ‘moral solidarity’ of a passionate commitment to people within one’s nation. In what is a patronising slew of false dichotomies and straw men, he suggests that ‘there is no other way of establishing and sustaining a rich moral formation other than by an “irrational” commitment to the people one lives among’, particularly in the context of one’s country. And so, ‘liberals and internationalists’ are against moral formation and solidarity. He is wrong: we ‘get’ the World Cup; we understand the camaraderie and tribalism behind football. We even believe in moral solidarity, only we prioritise solidarity in forms that go beyond patriotic fervour.

I like the idea of a football sweepstakes because it renders explicit how arbitrary the basis of such tribalism is: drawing lots for a team is no different from the lottery of where one is born. But choosing to adopt a team for whatever reason is perhaps more meaningful, precisely because one’s choice gives the loyalty some meaning. I chose to support Germany because I studied the language while at school. Moreover, when I was in Germany for a couple of months as an exchange student, I started following VfB Stuttgart in the Bundesliga. It was part of my learning experience of a foreign language and culture, and a symbol of the new friendships I made while I was there. I made the investment in it. Because of this, I had a personal story for choosing to support Germany, one that differed vastly from my automatic allegiance to the Indian cricket team. Germany crashing out in the World Cup has meant more of a loss to me than my other unsuccessful sweepstake teams (Mexico and Switzerland). I suppose I could revert to the Scottish tradition of spitefully supporting anybody who plays against England, but that would make me very unpopular amongst my friends.

Similarly, supporting Germany whilst living in the United Kingdom has meant solidarity with people on a basis other than an imagined sense of communion: it has brought me closer to other fellow German supporters who, like me, chose their football loyalty because of they studied the language or lived in the country as a visitor for some time. Or, there are the German immigrants in the UK, all of whom have a shared vulnerability with me as an immigrant because of Brexit. We have shared experiences which are real rather than abstract, imagined assumptions that each of us harboured. We might not kiss strangers on the head or swear at a television screen together in a pub over a football game, but we have friendships that go beyond the idea of belonging to the same nation.

The story of England’s football team — a young squad, its most multicultural entry in the tournament till date, a manager who is gracious in victory and believes in learning from his European counterparts, and a team that is open to working with immigrants — is positive and self-affirming. Likewise, my England-supporting friends in the UK always welcome me when we watch games together, and we have a friendship that goes beyond different football loyalties. But these stories belie a deeper contradiction, that the UK has consistently intensified its policy of creating a hostile environment towards foreigners, foreigners like the grandparents of the people who now play for the football team. These are the inflexible boundaries of these imagined communities, boundaries which separate me from these friends in ways that are insurmountable: I am not welcome in this country, I have fewer rights than them and fewer freedoms. My ability to remain here is conditional, and my value here comes not from a sense of human dignity but an instrumental calculation of what I can contribute. I am only allowed to be here as long as I can conform to the idea of a ‘good immigrant’. The friendships that I have with these people, and any camaraderie that I show by getting behind the same football team, are ultimately meaningless when material circumstances undermine any sense of belonging that I have here. The country does not share the same alacrity with which I might adopt its football team when deciding whether or not people like me should be treated with dignity. When everybody around me chants that ‘it’s coming home’, I am painfully aware that the home to which this trophy is returning is not and cannot be mine.

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006.

Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.