Nigel Farage is now keen to play political football

Ask not what you can do for football, but what football can do for you. As Donald Trump has learned ahead of this summer’s World Cup, Nigel Farage is learning just how richly exploitable football is, a ceaseless source of goodwill and eyeballs, a deeply political world hiding behind the convenient lie it is anything but.

On Tuesday morning Farage and Reform UK posted a series of clips and pictures filmed inside Portman Road, Ipswich Town’s stadium, including a row of “Farage 10” shirts hung up in the home dressing room. Although Ipswich have denied he was officially invited and that the visit was anything other than a standard-issue stadium tour booked through an external company, club officials were aware he was coming. While banning him entirely is infeasible, they could have reasonably restricted both hanging up the shirts and the extensive filming for political purposes, and did neither, a decision which has alienated both fans and players.

Aside from the veneer of endorsement from a Championship club ahead of the local elections and some snazzy promotional pictures, Farage knew his appearance would provide controversy and the resulting exposure. But perhaps the greatest concern is just how easy it has been for him to co-opt that attention and discourse, to force fans to declare political allegiances and Ipswich to clarify it is both apolitical and an “inclusive, diverse and welcoming organisation”. Of course, as always, taking no stand is taking a stand.

Reform is attempting to borrow the aesthetics, language and popularity of football to advance its cause, a plan which started with the launch of Reform FC and its sky blue football shirt (£39.99 standard issue, £99.99 for the discerning punter in search of a signed edition). This was an obvious attempt to create a Maga hat equivalent for a British audience which has not really caught on, but which fits a concerning pattern.

Given Farage has never held an opinion he likes more than attention, a doctrine of fag-stained opportunism, it is unsurprising that he has ignored his own 2021 plea to “keep politics out of football”. But his tour is one in a series of recent flare-ups in football’s relationship with the far right. The sport largely tries to hide behind a facade of impartiality, behind the inevitabilities of its scale and reach, a church so broad it stands for nothing. Leeds supporters booing the Ramadan break are just a vocal minority. England fans chanting “Stop the boats” at minorities on a busy train are exceptions. Jess Carter being racially abused by faceless bots, probably Russian, until it turns out it's actually a 60-year-old man from Lancashire.

And yet the simmering hate is always here, curdling and corrupting, eating the sport at the edges. Earlier this week John Terry commented three clapping emojis and a St George’s Cross on an Instagram post by independent MP Rupert Lowe, a picture of a woman outside Whitechapel station which demanded a burqa ban and also said “vote Restore Britain to get our capital city back”. His comment has since been deleted, but Terry follows both Lowe and a Lowe fan account, the bio of which reads “Great Britain needs Rupert Lowe!”, on Instagram. Cue another confused plea about why no club is lining up to hire such a great mind as manager.

And on Monday, Reform MP Suella Braverman wrote to FA chief executive Mark Bullingham demanding a target of 30% of coaches across all age groups being non-white be scrapped, calling it “fundamentally flawed and inherently racist”. Braverman or Reform had not commented on the policy since it was introduced in 2024, a concerning sign of a fresh interest and interference in football as elections loom.

It bears saying that a number of Keir Starmer’s election stops were football stadiums – including launching his election campaign at Gillingham’s Priestfield Stadium, just as Farage has campaigned in stadiums before, including a Brexit Party rally at AFC Fylde in 2019 attended by nearly 2,000 people. Starmer’s failure to utilise his legitimate football fandom is remarkable, making a sincere passion seem like a passing interest he would rather not be pressed on too hard.

But as the far-right creep on football seemingly intensifies, it is worth considering how best to combat it. Farage has little interest in football, yet he recognises thinly-veiled fault lines Reform can target to divide an already divided game, to siphon off attention and clicks from the ultimate content farm. Trump has already begun this process, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán a pioneer before him. Anything people love unconditionally, especially something the size of football, is exploitable. Farage will consider his Ipswich trip a success to be repeated, a fresh well of publicity. There will be similar stunts. But perhaps, just as Farage has so often ignored football, it should ignore him.

Photographs by Nigel Farage / X