Essay: Feminism, Football, Fucking

A Valentine to Manchester United: my first love

This is part one of a two-part Valentine’s Day Special. Part two is here.

cw: rape, intimate partner violence, domestic abuse

Dear Manchester United,

What the actual fuck? 

I’m writing my first ever public Valentine simply to ask you just that. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Because with not one but three players—a legend of the past (Ryan Giggs), of the present (Cristiano Ronaldo), of the future yet to come (Mason Greenwood)–accused of domestic and sexual abuse of women, you’re becoming a team synonymous with misogyny. 

And those are just the ones we know about. How many are “saved” from headlines by the club’s massive legal and PR machine? How many women abused have been silenced?

And when YOU the club were disgracefully mealy mouthed after Mason was arrested on suspicion of rape and making threats to kill–two statements with a grand total of five sentences between them–you could not have said “We don’t give a flying fuck about women” any louder. 

You might not have had a lot to say, but you’re certainly letting us, the women who support you, know that for all the love we have for you, you–Manchester United–do not love us back. And this feminist is seriously eyeing the door. 

Some might wonder why I’m writing my first ever public Valentine to you, a football club. What’s love got to do with it? Everything, United. Everything. For some people, the Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For me, it’s Feminism, Football, and Fucking. And you are my first love. Before I kissed any boys or girls, you had my heart.

It’s hard enough watching men’s football, with its ever-present threat of violence: players ready to fight when fouled, to argue with referees, to dive and exaggerate the consequences of a challenge. Violence that is often mirrored by fans in the stands and after matches. Violence that clearly goes home–both the homes of the players and their male supporters. 

That violence that goes home with the men’s game is a wholly-owned subsidiary of patriarchy. And I know quite a lot about patriarchy. It is the antithesis of love. It doesn’t come on or off with shin guards. It doesn’t need a season ticket to enter the stadium and the men’s team do not leave it behind in the dressing room with their kits and cleats. And patriarchy is never given the red card. Football authorities pay lip service to “kicking out” a host of social evils but it is as performative Ronaldo unfollowing Mason Greenwood on Instagram after Mason was arrested, and as performative as a fake dive in the penalty box. At least the latter is actually a cardable offense.

For some people, the Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For me, it’s Feminism, Football, and Fucking. And you are my first love. Before I kissed any boys or girls, you had my heart.

We have an idea of just how bad the abuse of women and children gets after supporters go home, specifically after Manchester United and Manchester City supporters go home. Researchers at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance found that abuse started increasing after games, peaking about 10 hours after a game started, with about 8.5% more incidents than average at that point. 

The researchers said they found that “all increases are driven by perpetrators that had consumed alcohol, and when games were played before 7pm.” Games which start during the day give supporters more time to drink. 

But simply moving all football games to evening start times will not end domestic abuse associated with games. The starting time of games is the trees. We must stay focused on the forest: patriarchy. 

It is not football that makes cisgender men abuse women and children. It is not the alcohol those men readily consume while watching football that makes them hurt women and children. And win, lose or draw, the score doesn’t make a man beat a woman.

Patriarchy does.

Remember the campaign by the UK’s National Centre for Domestic Violence (NCDV) with the tagline, “If England gets beaten, so will she.” The NCDV’s campaign extended to other nations in the 2018 World Cup, including Switzerland, Japan, Belgium and France and showed images of national flags imprinted onto women’s faces in blood.

"If England gets beaten, so will she". Picture: National Centre for Domestic Violence UK campaign, 2018

It was based on the findings of researchers from UK’s Lancaster University who analysed domestic violence figures from England’s games in the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cup found that incidents of domestic abuse were 11 percent higher the day after an England match.

More alarmingly: incidents of domestic abuse rose by 38 percent when the England team lost and increased by 26 percent where England won or drew, compared with days when there was no England match.

Patriarchy socializes men–trains them, to stick to sporting parlance–to believe they are entitled to our bodies, our time, and our attention. It trains them to hate us and it enables and protects that hate.

Football has a massive misogyny problem. And your silence is complicit in that hate, Manchester United.

What’s love got to do with it? Patriarchy forbids cisgender heterosexual men from expressing or desiring love, from showing any emotion other than anger, except during those 90 minutes of a men’s football match, when the men on the pitch can touch and hug each other after a goal and the men who support them in the stands loosen the straitjacket patriarchy forces around their hearts, and they allow those hearts, finally, even if just for a few moments, to revel in love.

“I can divorce my wife,” men have told me. “But my team is for life.”

Patriarchy forbids cisgender heterosexual men from expressing or desiring love, from showing any emotion other than anger, except during those 90 minutes of a men’s football match.

What’s love got to do with it? Everything. 

Does anyone love more ferociously or loyally than a nine-year-old girl who chooses a football team and understands that she’s in it forever? I have supported you since 1976–going on 46 years now. I am not known for talk of romance, and yet what is this but a Valentine from my broken heart?

My love for you has been tenacious, despite so many reasons to leave.

I stayed even though my dad, my brother and his wife and their four kids, as well as countless friends and lovers, support our biggest rivals, the Merseyside team that also wears red.

I stayed even though an Egyptian joined our biggest rivals. For ESPN, I even wrote about how hard it is to see an Egyptian play for the wrong team in red.  

I threatened to leave if you’d accepted overtures from the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman. And I was even called a “Manchester United superfan” by one media outlet during those days when so many of us urged you to turn down MBS’ millions. 

And what a relief that you did. My objection to his money was not just because he is believed to have ordered the slaughter of journalist Jamal Khashoggi but because of MBS’ misogyny: he ordered the worst crackdown on feminists in Saudi Arabia and has jailed and tortured several women’s rights activists.

And yet here you are: becoming synonymous with misogyny and the abuse of women anyway. You are either oblivious to that or think you are too big to care. I don’t know what’s worse.

Does anyone love more ferociously or loyally than a nine-year-old girl who chooses a football team and understands that she’s in it forever?

Let’s start with our Legend of the Future to Come: Mason Greenwood is one of our most gifted players. A 20-year-old who joined the Manchester United Academy when he was seven years old. You, Manchester United, have either miscalculated how deeply shaken we supporters are by what his girlfriend has said he did to her or you think it will be forgotten in the rush of headlines about how badly we’re playing these days. Again, I don’t know what’s worse.

And our Legend of the Present: it is not lost on any of us that you brought Cristiano Ronaldo back to Old Trafford knowing that a woman has said he raped her in 2009 while he was still a United player the first time around–just before he transferred to Real Madrid. What message did it send to Mason Greenwood that a man accused of rape returned a hero to Old Trafford to share the same pitch Mason had dreamed of playing on since he joined the academy? It is not just the men off the pitch who learn you can sexually assault a woman and still be a hero. 

And our legend of the past: Ryan Giggs. Giggsy was supposed to be one of the good ones! Or so we thought. A man who spent his entire career from 1991 until retiring in 2016 at United will stand trial accused of abusing his ex-partner and her sister. This is a former player many of us had hoped would take over coaching of our men’s team. 

Could your silence at such abominable treatment of women be any louder in telling us, the women and girls who support you–who love you–that you do not reciprocate our love?

And can you shine any brighter the green light to men and boys–who will admit to love only of a football team–that treating women so abominably will bring little accountability? Patriarchy signals that to them everyday anyway. When legends of their team are the perpetrators, with little to feeble pushback from the team, it is like injecting steroids into the patriarchal message machine. 

Could your silence at such abominable treatment of women be any louder in telling us, the women and girls who support you–who love you–that you do not reciprocate our love?

It’s not just Manchester United players who have been accused of domestic and sexual abuse of women, I know. Benjamin Mendy–a defender for the other Manchester team–currently faces nine charges in total, including seven counts of rape, involving six alleged victims.

But I don’t love the other Manchester team, or any other team for that matter. I am polyamorous when it comes to love off the pitch but once that whistle blows at the start of the match, it is only you, United. (O.K. I confess, Napoli are my second–from a distance–team.)

So fucking lead the way already, United. You are one of the most, if not the most, recognizable football teams in the world. What are you waiting for? Until we can field an entire 11-man squad of abusers and rapists of women?

Get rid of both Cristiano Ronaldo and Mason Greenwood. That’s right—exorcise us of these misogynists of our present and future yet to come and show us you take seriously gender-based violence. Learn from Reith Rovers and the Portland Timbers how to deal with rapists and abusers on the squad. Hint: you kick them out.

And then understand that it’s not enough to show the red card to a “few bad apples.” We need systemic change. Patriarchy is systemic. If you want help, start with these recommendations that Level Up, End Violence Against Women, and the Three Hijabis have listed in their open letter to the Football Association and the English Premier League. 

They include the introduction of anti-gender-based violence mandatory training for all players, managers, coaches and owners; a Tackling Gender-Based Violence Charter for clubs to sign; clear sexual misconduct policies and protocols with the power to impose disciplinary action on players; and for football academies to introduce prevention programmes for young people. Remember: Mason Greenwood joined our club’s academy when he was seven.

Additionally to all of the above, I want to see you, specifically United, lead. I want a campaign as massive as you are. One that will set the standard for how a football team makes clear its zero tolerance for misogyny and gender-based violence.  

Bring back our biggest stars like David Beckham, Eric Cantona, Wayne Rooney, and others, and launch that campaign.

You risk losing us, United. My love for you has been tenacious but it is not unconditional. 

I am appealing personally to Marcus Rashford to lead the way.

Marcus knows the power of a football star. His drive to ensure children in need did not go hungry during the pandemic pushed the government to change its policy over its free school meals vouchers during lockdown. 

A United player–a Manchester lad–born and bred–has shown us how to take the side of moral clarity. Show men how to stay on that side, Marcus, and lead that campaign against gender-based violence.

In September, after Ronaldo scored two goals in his first game for us since 2009, I would not cheer for him. So I focused instead on my fellow supporters who filled the stands at Old Trafford. And there among them, I saw an ecstatic Muslim woman. I was so moved and delighted, that I shared this shaky picture of her on Twitter.

Look at how thrilled she is, United. That is love.

When I first started watching matches on telly with my dad and brother, back in the 1970s, we rarely saw women, let alone brown or visibly Muslim women, in the stands. So what a thrill to see this sister, this fellow United supporter. 

You risk losing us, United. My love for you has been tenacious but it is not unconditional. Choose us, take the side of your supporters who love you, by taking a definitive stand against gender-based violence.

This isn’t a breakup letter, yet.

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Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. She is editing an anthology on menopause called Bloody Hell! And Other Stories: Adventures in Menopause from Across the Personal and Political Spectrum. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.  

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