Football fans unite in fight against poverty: one year since they were last allowed in stadiums

Football fans have been fighting the battle against hunger as people’s circumstances were worsened by the pandemic and fundraising brought new challenges. Photo: @SFoodbanks/Twitter

Over a year since the last full capacity game in England, fan group fundraisers, like Fans Supporting Foodbanks, have had to change their methods of raising money to support the worsening poverty crisis as a result of the pandemic.

Boris Johnson’s most recent roadmap indicated that Premier League clubs could welcome back 10,000 fans on the final day of the season in May, subject to the success of the vaccination programme and Covid case rates dropping.

Fans Supporting Foodbanks are a group of Everton and Liverpool fans who put their on-pitch rivalry aside to tackle a battle off it. They have been campaigning all throughout the year, despite not being able to fundraise outside grounds on matchdays like they usually would do. Their online #RightToFood campaign includes a petition that would make the government legally bound to help anyone who is going hungry, and currently has over 45,000 signatures.

When television broadcasters introduced the ‘pay-per-view’ initiative earlier this season, encouraging fans to spend £15 on top of their TV contracts, Fans Supporting Foodbanks proposed that fans boycott this scheme and donate the money to a foodbank instead, raising over £100,000.

This comes alongside Manchester United and England star Marcus Rashford’s national campaigns to end child poverty, with the introduction of free school meals provided by England councils for children at home during the pandemic, before they returned back to schools this week.