United Glasgow was founded in 2011 under the motto "Unity in the community", and it was set up for refugees and asylum seekers with the intention of providing free access to football equipment, pitches and all the support they needed to assimilate into Glaswegian life.
The football club boasts three competitive teams and four community drop-in sessions each week that help support more than 200 players of all genders, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities, socio-economic positions and immigration statuses. The club are determined to foster an environment in which the players forget about their backgrounds, so don't ask about their pasts or even hold much in the way of personal details. Anything they do hold and submit can be monitored by the Home Office, with one of the coaches once being visited by the authorities after listing one player as living at his own home address. It isn't just refugees and asylum seekers that join United Glasgow. The club also helps promote and defend the rights of ethnic minorities and the LGBT community within Scotland.
It isn't just refugees and asylum seekers that join United Glasgow. The club also helps promote and defend the rights of ethnic minorities and the LGBT community within Scotland.
United Glasgow's message of inclusivity and acceptance has garnered a steady increase in popularity and support. Paul Georgie, who helps run the Sunday men's team, agrees that the club offer a respite from the divisive politics that people are bombarded with every day.
Unlike your typical Sunday league team, they have social media channels that reach almost 9,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter each week, popular merchandise such as a t-shirt parodying Buckfast wine's bottle label with the slogan "antifascists" and regularly host club nights and fundraisers that attract hundreds of supporters.
"It's strange and funny," adds Kurdish asylum seeker Mohamed Ahmed, who joined five years ago. "There are over 15 different countries and languages. You feel like everything is different, not just you. Sometimes you can try speaking your own language and nobody understands it. Then someone says something else and you learn something from another language. It's really nice."
Despite its popularity, United Glasgow is still dogged by the same financial issues as most amateur football clubs in Scotland - equipment and venue costs. As things stand, 70-80% of the club's revenue is spent on booking pitches and providing boots, shin guards and strips for players that cannot afford them on their own.
"Money is always a problem," says Ruiradh MacFarlane, United Glasgow's football coordinator. "I have experience in other countries across Europe that are far more subsidised. That's currently not here within Scotland and I think the grassroots game could do with a cascade of money to it to help projects such as our own to accelerate and to continue doing the great work." The club has received funding from initiatives, such as Sported or the Big Lottery Fund's Young Start Fund, but that backing is limited.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/49872481
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