Football fans unite in Right to Food fight

Sarah Winterburn

It’s a strange time to be a football fan. We can’t watch our teams, many clubs are on the edge of financial collapse, and the amount of abuse targeted at players and referees is truly dispiriting. It’s enough to make anyone wonder what exactly is going on with so many of our fellow fans at the moment, and whether it can be fixed in the future.

So, for balance, some positivity. Throughout the pandemic, there has been one overwhelming positive for football fans – we are getting organised in a way that has never been done before, to great effect.

The watershed moment came with the idea to introduce hugely excessive Pay Per View (PPV) costs into the Premier League once it was confirmed fans wouldn’t be back at grounds in the foreseeable future.

When the idea of forcing fans to pay £14.95 per game to see our teams play was initially floated, something unprecedented happened: the fans said ‘no more’. Incredibly, efforts led by Fans Supporting Foodbanks – and in particular the good folks at NUFC Foodbank – rallied the major supporters’ groups and trusts of all 20 Premier League clubs (with further support from fan groups lower down the pyramid) to reject PPV.

Crucially, it was rejected on principle. The en masse choice to send the money to local foodbanks instead told the people behind PPV that the boycott was a choice, that the greed had gone too far this time and a line in the sand was being drawn. We can pay, but we won’t. Lower prices were suggested but it was too late – a PR disaster had unfolded, and a lesson was learned. When fans stick together, we win, end of story.

The #BoycottPPV campaign was the biggest victory for fan activism in history, and it has laid the groundwork for something far greater. Football fans are the biggest group of people who gather regularly in almost every town and city across the country. What might happen if we took the principles of the anti-PPV campaign and applied them to something far larger? What could we achieve if football fans stand together and say no to greed on a much grander scale?

Following this principle, the Fans Supporting Foodbanks National Network is taking steps to end food poverty in this country by campaigning for a Right to Food enshrined in law to sit alongside our rights to education, healthcare and equality.

A Right to Food in law would end the seemingly interminable debate over whether children should be fed over school holidays. It would mean the vulnerable elderly no longer have to choose between eating or heating their homes. It would mean no more skipping meals to make ends meet, no more nurses queuing up at foodbanks.

By putting a Right to Food into law, we make a statement about the kind of country we wish to be. One where we accept our mutual responsibility towards each other and assert that everyone deserves to live a life of dignity.

The effects of poverty and malnutrition are passed down through generations in the DNA, and the fabric of our communities suffers greatly for it. The food poverty epidemic on the streets of every town and city in the country was at appalling levels before Covid; since the pandemic, it has become a crisis of epic proportions.

To give an example from one foodbank in one city in one part of the country, Manchester Central Foodbank has seen the number of emergency food parcels it gives out increase by more than five times year-on-year. That foodbank covers the area surrounding the Etihad Stadium, meaning that everyone who attends City games in better times is likely to have some connection to a person who has received emergency food parcels from Manchester Central Foodbank in the last few months. In Greater Manchester as a whole, the number of households receiving Universal Credit has increased by almost 70% since the pandemic began. Again, this is one part of the country, and the story is repeated almost everywhere.

While not a panacea on its own, a Right to Food will have far reaching beneficial effects and strike a major blow against poverty.

The first National Food Strategy for approximately 75 years is being written right now, and football fans from across the country are demanding that the millions of people in poverty are put at the centre of it with the inclusion of a Right to Food.

Already, the various Fans Supporting Foodbanks groups have won major victories. Liverpool became the first ‘Right to Food’ city in January, with Manchester following suit in February. Greater Manchester as a whole today became the UK’s first Right to Food region, with Mayor Andy Burnham and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority backing the campaign following discussions with the City and United fan groups.

If City, United, Liverpool and Everton fans can work together on this, everyone can. Similar campaigns are underway in Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds, London and more, and those are just the start.

Football fans are regularly treated as the scum of the earth, but you and I know that we’re anything but. Whilst we’ll never be perfect as a group – what group is? – we can be so much more, and the Right to Food campaign from Fans Supporting Foodbanks is just the latest example of how we can use our power to change things for the better.

We are asking you to join us, because hunger doesn’t wear club colours, and unity is strength. Write to you MPs asking them to declare their support for children having enough to eat. Write to your local councils and get your home behind the campaign. Sign and share the petition along with the tens of thousands of others who have already done so.

This is a campaign by football fans, for everyone. Thanks for getting involved.

Alex, MCFC Fans Foodbank Support

F365 Features