The offside of football in London
Is it worth putting up with discrimination to see this? Photo credit: mkm photography
London is a city synonymous with football. The British capital contains 13 professional teams, five of which play in the Premier League. Sadly, as I’ve learned, watching the raw spectacle of English football comes at a price – especially for international fans.
When I first moved to the city I was looking forward to frequent trips to stadiums such as the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and White Hart Lane. However upon arrival I found this to be difficult. The prices are atrocious.
Not only do you have to pay for the ticket (ranging from £35 to your mortgage) but many clubs only sell tickets to members. So imagine my delight when my team came to London to play Fulham in the relatively inexpensive Europa League Group stages. I called up the ticket office and was told I could buy up to four tickets, with no membership charge. I gave the operator my name and he told me to hold the line.
This is where things went awry. It turns out Martinelli is an Italian name and Italians are all ultras – therefore they are not allowed into the stadium. I complained and was put through to customer relations who told me that Roma fans, i.e. Italians, were not permitted as they wanted to limit the risk of violence within the stadium. I complained and was put through to someone else.
I changed my approach and told them I was Argentinean, had never been to Italy, could not place Rome on a map and thought Totti was a type of pesto but to no avail. I was an Italian, a Roma fan and therefore one of the few idiots who stabbed Man U fans in 2007. Surely with most football clubs millions in the red this was not the time to nitpick clients.
I did figure out a way to go to the match; I got a friend to buy the tickets and when Roma scored in the 92nd minute and I celebrated in the Fulham fan sector with 20 other Roma fans, I wondered why they had bothered.
The point to take out of all this is there is a cheap way for internationals to watch football in London; go to cup games, pointless Europa league fixtures and friendlies.
Just avoid Fulham – they’re crap.
3 Comments
Is there no legal redress under the Race Relations Act? To tar every Italian with the same brush is straightforward racism. I’d try reporting Fulham to the Race Relations Board. And what would happen if Fulham were to buy an Italian player? Would he have to kick the ball in from Stevenage Road!
Hi
While I sympathise with your situation – and while technically this is racism – if you’d seen the levels of violence in English football in the 80′s, including the Heysel stadium disaster where 39 people died, which caused English clubs to be banned from European matches for years; you excuse them from taking pre-emptive action like this.
It’s no-one’s right to go to a football match.
The clubs are totally paranoid about hooliganism – for good reason. Thousand’s of English fans are banned from football stadium’s in England for disorder reasons, the operation to stop violence is absolutely huge and is what has allowed English football to be up there with the best in the world.
This isn’t *racism* in the traditional sense, and some would find it offensive for you to frame this story in that way – specially in the context of football – where racism was a big problem in England decades ago and STILL exists in places (for example black English players having bananas thrown onto the pitch at them when playing in certain countries).
Lets keep this in perspective.
Hi Nick, I am fully aware of the issue of racism within the game and this article is not trying to equate my difficulty in obtaining tickets with the abuse suffered by certain players. I do however find the actions taken by Fulham to stop Roma supporters going to see the match ridiculous especially given what a half-hearted attempt it was.
Brendan, you will be pleased to know that after his performance against Fulham in Rome, in which he scored, Italian, AS Roma striker, Stefano Okaka is now at the club on loan.