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- I spoke with Bohs’ Daniel Lambert about how the Dublin football club became involved in the issue of refugees’ rights (and other social issues)
- The club decided to partner with Amnesty and put “Refugees Welcome” in place of a sponsor on this year’s away jersey – the move has generated an extremely positive, global reaction
- Bohs nearly went out of business less than a decade ago, but thanks to its fan-owned model, the club is even weathering the COVID-19 crisis
Dublin football club, Bohemian FC, is enjoying an unprecedented surge in popularity at the moment.
This is all thanks to an away jersey with “Refugees Welcome” (supported by Amnesty International) across the front of it, instead of a normal sponsor. On the collar, it also has “Love Football, Hate Racism”. More recently, the club decided to donate all sales of the jersey for a week to the Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI), an organization requesting an end to the system of Direct Provision in Ireland for asylum seekers.
The reaction from the public has been overwhelmingly positive, and also global, with the club shipping the jersey all over the globe. So much so, that Berlin is fast emerging as a hot-bed of Bohs fans.
This is all happening despite a pandemic which means the team wasn’t even on the football pitch trying to win trophies.
How did a League of Ireland (LOI) team manage this?
Decisions to nail Bohs’ colours to the mast and support a host of social issues has played a key role in its recent popularity, not just in Ireland but also globally.
But the support of such issues only tells a part of the revival of Bohemians.
Less than a decade ago, Dublin’s oldest football club was in severe financial difficulties that threatened its entire existence. Bohs was heavily in debt, with ominous loans due to be paid, while players had their wages cut.
This in league that lags far behind others in terms of financial muscle. Average attendances for the LOI 2019 season were 1,483, yet Bohs average just under 3,000 fans at each home game, pointing to a strong and active fanbase.
I spoke with Daniel Lambert, a volunteer director at Bohs, to understand the club’s dramatic turnaround and why “refugees welcome” fits into the very fabric of what the club is and the community it represents.
Bohs’ Fight For Survival
“When something nearly disappears it refocuses people’s minds on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” said Daniel.
He admitted that in 2011 and 2012 members of the club didn’t know if it would survive due to the awful financial conditions it was in.
As he explains it, Bohs really mirrored Irish society at the time. The club was spending way beyond its means, trying to get into European football to sustain this money train further.
Reality finally caught up to it, when staff were let go and budgets were slashed by over 90%.
In these dire moments, Daniel felt it led the club to look fundamentally at why it was here in the first place.
“Why do we exist as a football club? What became obvious really quickly is that Bohs was important to a group of people who went and were fans, but we’d lost touch with the local area.”
“We needed people to come to the club and support the club and rebuild the club, based on a connection that was something other than winning.”
Bohs operates a membership model, where a member pays a Euro a day to have a say in the club.
All directors, like Daniel, are volunteers. As he explains it: “That’s one of the beauties of the club. Anyone can be on the board of directors. Everyone comes with great intentions because they’re not financially paid, you do it for the love it.”
How Bohs Tackle The Issue Of Immigration
Sometimes it just takes one person to come up with a great idea. Daniel credits Bohs fan and member, Kevin Brannigan, with kicking off the campaign around Direct Provision centers in Ireland.
In 2014/15, he wanted to bring people in direct provision to Bohs games. To get the ball rolling, he raised money at Bohemians’ games and engaged with the African community in Dublin to generate interest to go along. The money was then used to fund a bus to bring these football fans to a game.
Following a great reaction from the community, the club formally decided it was an issue it wanted to get involved with by teaming up with the Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI) in 2019.
The club produced an away jersey with “the clenched, raised fist, is a symbol of solidarity and support used to express unity, strength and resistance.” 10% of the profits from that jersey were used to further fund bringing the people living in Direct Provision to games at Dalymount Park.
In its statement the club said: “These are among the most unrepresented people on our island.”
That’s the key point here for the club.
Daniel explained: “Bohs is apolitical so we didn’t see this as taking a political stance, we saw this as a human rights issue – the Irish people have travelled the world as well for hundreds of years, and for every reason.”
“These are similar kinds of people who are fleeing persecution, but also just want to have a better life.”
Fast forward to this season and Bohs teamed up with Amnesty to produce the “Refugees Welcome” jersey
The reaction has been truly global since it launched.
The club has posted jerseys out to over 60+ countries to every part of the world, from cities including Abu Dhabi to Brighton to Berlin to Minneapolis.
“I think the only good things can come from a message like what’s on the jersey, it’s a lot better than having an alcohol company on a shirt,” said Daniel.
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The popularity of the away jersey has been a welcome distraction from COVID-19, Bohs, like all LOI clubs has faced financial challenges.
However, the deep structural changes made years ago have paid off for Bohs.
If COVID-19 had hit “four or five years ago, it would have been a huge crisis [for the club] and I think it’s fair to say we wouldn’t have been able to honour players’ contracts” said Daniel. “It is due to the fact that the club has a more solid foundation now.”
This is no mean feat given the competition LOI clubs face from other sports in Ireland for fans’ hard-earned Euros, or look across the water at the UK’s lower leagues and the utter destruction of teams like Bury FC.
Meanwhile, the away jersey just keeps selling and selling, even in the most unexpected ways in Irish society.
The jersey has even managed to break down the fierce intercounty divide of Ireland’s dominant sport, Gaelic football, with one prominent (unnamed) football star far removed from Dublin, even buying one.
It would seem that with the right message that anything really is possible.
