By Craig Willis
Professional football in Europe has become increasingly diverse in recent decades in the globally connected context. This rising diversity can be seen in the playing squads, with international signings becoming the norm in European clubs even amongst lower league teams, as well as in an increasingly ethnically diverse fanbase due both to migration and the development of fan clubs across the globe. A lesser discussed element is the linguistic diversity that exists within clubs and their fanbase, not only because fans now emanate from other countries but also because regional and minority languages are present within the state or domestic league in which teams evolve. A few prominent examples such as Catalan at FC Barcelona (Chopra 2014) or Basque at Athletic Club Bilbao (Vaczi 2015) are reasonably well-known, yet almost every European league contains clubs situated in areas with regional or minority language contexts. The aim of this article is to demonstrate this diversity in more detail, outline the limited academic scholarship that exists on the topic, and point to a research gap requiring more scrutiny.
Although Europe’s regional and minority languages have historic grounding, many have only come to receive formal recognition and subsequent protection or provision in recent decades. Basque, Catalan, and Galician (Queen’s University n.d.) received substantial legal protection after the Spanish Constitution of 1979—following a period under Francisco Franco during which these languages were prohibited. In the United Kingdom (UK), languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Welsh have been legally strengthened through successive language acts, whilst other Celtic languages such as Breton in France remain without any formal legal recognition from the state. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages[2] and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities[3] (both Council of Europe legislations) have increased the international focus on and protection of European minority languages, but significant states such as France and Italy have still not ratified those agreements. Thus, the legal context for linguistic diversity varies considerably by country; however, within a particular country the number of speakers of minority languages can be substantial, and the salience of such languages in society has certainly increased. Another element of linguistic diversity—covered by the same Council of Europe legislations—pertains to those languages spoken by so-called kin state minorities (Sabanadze 2006), for example by German speakers in Italy or Hungarians in Romania. There are dozens of such recognized minorities, most of which were formed due to border changes, typically post-1918, 1945, or 1989. Although these communities speak an official state language, it is not that of the “host state” they are situated in; thus, many of them face minoritized challenges similar to those faced by speakers of languages such as Basque or other languages in non-kin state contexts.
The most prominent case to demonstrate the presence of regional and minority languages in top division football is certainly Spain’s La Liga. As of the 2025-2026 season,[4] within the Spanish league there are twelve clubs situated in regions where a recognized regional or minority language has official status (Basque in the Basque Country: Athletic Club, Deportivo Alaves; Real Sociedad; Basque in Navarre: Osasuna; Catalan in Catalonia: Barcelona, Espanyol, Girona; Valencian/Catalan in Valencia; Villareal, Valencia, Levante; Catalan in Mallorca: RCD Mallorca; Galician in Galicia: Celta Vigo), not to mention dozens others in lower leagues. The extent to which a minority language is used by a club or spoken by its fans obviously varies significantly. However, many of these clubs have bilingual websites or use the minority language in their social media. In fact, in Spain this situation describes over fifty percent of the clubs. Elsewhere the situation is quite different, but there are still prominent cases. These include clubs in Italy—German at FC Südtirol (Willis and Volgger 2024), Sardinian at Cagliari Calcio; the Netherlands—Frisian at SC Heerenveen; (van Beek 2025); or Poland—Silesian at Ruch Chorzów. A notable context is that of Hungarian minorities outside of Hungary—present in Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, and elsewhere. In these countries, minorities often have created distinct clubs, for example Dunajska Streda (DAC 1904) in Slovakia (Gosling, 2009.)
The degree of prominence of a minority language within a team also varies significantly. In some contexts the language is used extensively because the state majority language is not present—for example, Swedish at IFK Mariehamm in Finland or Croatian at Zrinjski Mostar (Willis 2023) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In other contexts, there is almost completely balanced bilingualism (German and Italian at FC Südtirol), but sometimes the minority language is almost invisible or only used symbolically (Sardinian at Cagliari Calcio). Nonetheless, symbolism can still be important for the clubs and their fans, sometimes bringing a certain level of pride or prestige. Flags or club badges are a prominent example here; for example the teams in Barcelona and Girona use the Catalan red and yellow stripes, and the Sardinian flag is present on the Cagliari Calcio club badge.
Most of Europe’s regional or minority linguistic diversity is captured in the domestic leagues, however there are contexts where the language has a link to international football as well. Wales is the most prominent example here, but there is also Irish in Ireland or Catalan in Andorra. In Wales, the national team exists despite the country being a sub-region of a UN member (the UK), since the football associations of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales predate UEFA or FIFA (Ganohariti 2021) and these countries are where some of the earliest international matches took place. Due to the very low number of Scottish Gaelic speakers in Scotland (less than two percent of the population), the national team does not show any link to the language—even if there may be speakers amongst its fans. However, Welsh is spoken by closer to a third or a quarter of people in Wales and thus has been more of an avenue for linguistic diversity and activism (Marple 2022). This phenomenon has grown significantly since the Welsh men’s national team qualified for Euro 2016 and has been also present in the women’s national team, which achieved a new level of fame by qualifying for Euro 2025 this year in Switzerland. There has therefore been usage of the Welsh word for the name of the nation—Cymru—and Welsh has been used in songs/hymns sung by fans (Nation.Cymru 2021). Welsh has also increasingly been used in social media and by a few Welsh-speaking players during press conferences.
The realm of international football also involves cases of “unrecognized” or “stateless” nations, which often compete in “unofficial’ international competitions. Hence, some “national selections” of Catalonia, Euskal Herria (the Basque Country), and Galicia, have played against teams representing other territories or even official FIFA members. For example, Euskal Herria faced Wales in a friendly match in 2006, which was seen as a celebration of their similarities and common struggle of minoritization in a larger state (Evans 2021). More recently, there have even been competitions organized between these unrecognized nations by the Confederation of Independent Football Associations (CONIFA), founded in 2013.[5] The confederation held its first tournament in 2014 in Sapmi, the land of the Sami-speaking indigenous peoples of northern Europe, with the matches held in the Swedish part of the lands. CONIFA lists 44 member organizations on its website—across six continents—seventeen of which are located in Europe.[6] These territories include many where a distinct language exists—Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Occitania, Abkhazia (to name only a few)—but language is not CONIFA’s exclusive focus. Notably, “larger” minority contexts such as those in Spain, are not members of the confederation. Nonetheless, this organization is an interesting niche in the football world and no doubt holds significant symbolic meaning and pride for those competing.
Media is a hugely important sector for football and language, often being the avenue through which linguistic diversity can transcend speaker groups. Broadcasters such as ETB (Basque), TV3 (Catalan), TVG (Galician), or S4C (Welsh) see live sport bring in the largest audiences and thus expose non-speakers to contexts (and languages) they may not see/hear elsewhere (Willis 2024a). Literature on minority languages has repeatedly pointed out the role of sports media in promoting linguistic diversity beyond just the speakers themselves—for example, the Irish or Scottish Gaelic cases whereby exposure to the language through live sports on television was shown to improve attitudes towards it (Moriarity 2009; MacKenzie 2018). More recently, the way football clubs or associations in Wales have used and promoted the Welsh language on their social media channels was analyzed, suggesting a positive effect on normalizing the language (Jones 2025). An EU-funded research network, PLURILINGMEDIA,[7] which I chair, has been delving into topics related to media, language, and football. In particular, Working Group 1 on Audience and Content Creator Habits is concerned with the convergence of actors on social media platforms such as TikTok or Instagram Reels (Willis 2024b), where the content is of an audiovisual nature and individuals, media institutions, and third sector organizations all compete (Jones 2024). In the context of football, how minority language media companies, football clubs, and their fans interact online—in a context of pressure from majority language or global English—is a core question.
Despite this rich array of linguistic diversity across many football leagues, academic research has mostly focused on the political elements of such contexts. The aspect of nationalism is a strong theme here, particularly with Basque and Catalan (Tuñón and Brey 2012; Quiroga 2013; Chopra 2014; Vaczi 2015) but also in Scotland (Vaczi et al. 2020) or Hungary (Molnár 2023). Explicit links between football and nationalist politics have been discussed in the context of Ireland, including links to violence in the north of Ireland (Bairner 1996; Bairner and Shirlow 1998), but without much of a mention of language. Another prominent strand is the link between identity and national symbols used by teams and fans, present in some of the aforementioned literature but also explored in cases such as Corsica (Rey 2020) or Kosovo (McGuinness 2020). Whilst some of the literature touches upon language, it has never been the core focus. Moreover, there lacks a comparative approach, which, given the array of cases, there certainly is scope for.
As part of an attempt to address this academic research gap, I co-organized a symposium in Cardiff earlier this year, bringing together scholars, practitioners, and activists to discuss linguistic diversity in football. The Sgôr symposium[8] was funded by the Welsh government and included speakers from Basque, Catalan, Breton, and Frisian contexts. Part of the motivation was to recognize a lack of academic work on the use of languages by clubs and their fans, since previous literature has tended to focus on political elements or cultural aspects of languages. One of the outcomes of this symposium will be a special issue of the academic journal, Soccer & Society[9], to be published in 2026, which will be co-edited by Alan Bairner of Loughborough University, Lana St Ledger of Cardiff Metropolitan University, and myself. The issue will feature ten academic articles from situations across Europe—including many of the aforementioned. We will further seek to establish the symposium as an annual event, with plans to host a second edition in Catalonia in Spring 2026 and a third in Friesland in 2027.
The topic of minority languages and football will certainly grow as an academic focus in coming years and also hopefully amongst other stakeholders and the broader public. One of the most pressing challenges for minority language contexts is now the question of how to get speakers to use the language. Education provision has grown significantly in recent decades in many places, so there are often more learners than ever, but the language often remains seen as a school subject. Therefore, contexts like sport and of course the media are avenues that may help to normalize the language and give it another dimension that helps create a contemporary image or even “cool” status. It is the role of academics to develop a collaborative and comparative approach to the topic so that contexts can learn from one another and the positive practices of certain football clubs or associations can be shared.
Craig Willis is a researcher at the European Centre for Minority Issues and completed his PhD in 2024 at the Europa-Universität Flensburg with a dissertation titled “Purpose and Challenges of Minority Language Media.” His research focuses broadly on minority language communities in the context of media but also in activism, civil society, and football. He is the Action Chair of the Language Plurality in Europe’s Changing Media Sphere (PLURILINGMEDIA)[1] COST Action, which will run until 2028.
References
Bairner, Alan. 1996. “Sportive nationalism and nationalist politics: A comparative analysis of Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, and Sweden.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 20 (3): 314–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/01937239602000300.
Bairner, Alan, and Peter Shirlow. 1998. “Loyalism, Linfield and the territorial politics of soccer fandom in Northern Ireland.” Space and Polity, 2 (2): 163–177.
Chopra, Rakshit. 2014. “The Role of FC Barcelona in Fuelling Catalan Nationalism: Football and Regional Identity.” The International Journal of Sport and Society, 4 (3): 11–22. https://doi.org/10.18848/2152-7857/CGP/v04i03/53980.
Evans, Christopher. 2021. “A special relationship – when Wales played the Basque Country.” Nation.Cymru, 19 December. https://nation.cymru/sport/a-special-relationship-when-wales-played-the-basque-country/.
Ganohariti, Ramesh. 2021. “Sovereignty and non-state territories in international football.” Centre on Constitutional Change News, 20th September. https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/news-and-opinion/sovereignty-and-non-state-territories-international-football.
Gosling, Tim. 2009. “Nationalism seeps into Slovak football club.” Deutsche Welle, 6th March. https://www.dw.com/en/slovak-football-club-the-target-of-nationalist-tug-of-war/a-49018978.
Jones, Elin. 2024. Presentation to the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages 80th Plenary Session, 19 November 2024, Strasbourg.
Jones, Meilyr. 2025. Astudiaeth Feirniadol o Ddefnydd y Gymraeg ar y Cyfryngau Cymdeithasol Chwaraeon. Doctoral Thesis, Cardiff Metropolitan University. https://figshare.cardiffmet.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Astudiaeth_Feirniadol_o_Ddefnydd_y_Gymraeg_ar_y_Cyfryngau_Cymdeithasol_Chwaraeon/28359152?file=52176905.
MacKenzie, Gordon. 2018. Minority Language Media, Status Planning & Linguistic Attitudes in Scotland: the Sociolinguistic Impact of the Gaelic Television Channel-BBC Alba (Doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow). https://theses.gla.ac.uk/30737/.
Marple, Jae. 2022. “Wonderful Welsh: How the Football Association of Wales is promoting the Welsh Language through Football.” Tiki-Taka Linguistics, 10th November. https://tikitakalinguistics.com/wonderful-welsh-how-the-football-association-of-wales-is-promoting-the-welsh-language-through-football/.
McGuinness, Mike. 2020. ”The Kosovo football team, national symbols and identity: ‘A team of eleven named men.’” In O’Brien, Holden and Ginesta (eds.) Sport, Globalisation and Identity: New Perspectives on Regions and Nations. London / New York: Routledge, pp. 52-68.
Molnár, Győző. 2023. “Nationalism and sport intersection in Hungary: building fences, expanding nationhood.” National Identities, 25(4): 305–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2023.2188584.
Moriarty, Mairead. 2009. “Normalising language through television: the case of the Irish language television channel, TG4.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 4 (2): 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447140902741288.
Nation.Cymru. 2021. “FAW using ‘Cymru’ asserts Welsh identity in the world, says language campaigner.” Nation.Cymru, 25th June. https://nation.cymru/news/faw-using-cymru-asserts-welsh-identity-in-the-world-says-language-campaigner/.
Queen’s University. n.d. “Spain”. Multiculturalism Policies in Contemporary Democracies, https://www.queensu.ca/mcp/national-minorities/resultsbycountry-nm/spain-nm.
Quiroga, Alejandro. 2013. Football and National Identities in Spain: The Strange Death of Don Quixote. Springer.
Rey, Didier. 2020. “Football in Corsica: From the pride of being French to the desire not to be?” In Bairner and Vaczi (eds) Sport and Secessionism. Routledge, pp. 122–134.
Sabanadze, Natalie. 2006. “Minorities and Kin-States.” Helsinki Monitor, 17 (3): 244–256. https://doi.org/10.1163/157181406778141810.
Tuñón, Jorge, and Elisa Brey. 2012. “Sports and politics in Spain – football and nationalist attitudes within the Basque Country and Catalonia.” European Journal for Sport and Society, 9(1+2): 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/16138171.2012.11687887.
Vaczi, Mariann. 2015. Soccer, Culture and Society in Spain: An Ethnography of Basque Fandom. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315772073.
Vaczi, Mariann, Alan Bairner, and Stuart Whigham. 2020. “Where extremes meet: Sport, nationalism, and secessionism in Catalonia and Scotland.” Nations and Nationalism, 26(4): 943–959. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12569.
van Beek, Jasmijn. 2025. “Football and minority language(s) online: The case of sc Heerenveen in Fryslân.” ECMI Minorities Blog, 7th July. https://doi.org/10.53779/GGGG2222.
Willis, Craig. 2023. “Ethnic Identity and Football in Mostar – A Clear Divide along the Old Front Line.” ECMI Minorities Blog, 11th December. https://doi.org/10.53779/SKLP2233.
Willis, Craig. 2024a. “How do Nonspeakers View Minority Language Media? A Comparison of Basque, Catalan, Galician, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh Public Broadcasters.” International Journal of Communication, 18: 3752–3771. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21200/4721.
Willis, Craig. 2024b. “Divergence and convergence: The implications of shifting media consumption habits on the field of minority language media studies.” Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 16 (1): 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1386/cjcs_00100_1.
Willis, Craig, and Volgger, Jakob. 2024. “FC Südtirol: Unity under one roof?” Eureka – Eurac Research Blog. https://www.eurac.edu/en/blogs/eureka/unity-under-one-roof-identity-and-language-in-the-context-of-fc-sudtirol-and-thei.
[1] https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA23105/
[2] https://www.coe.int/en/web/european-charter-regional-or-minority-languages/signatures-and-ratifications
[3] https://rm.coe.int/16800c10cf
[4] https://www.laliga.com/en-GB/laliga-easports/standing
[5] https://www.conifa.org/en/
[6] https://www.conifa.org/en/members/
[7] For more information about PLURILINGMEDIA: https://plurilingmedia.eu/
[8] For more information about the Sgôr symposium: https://www.wales.ac.uk/cy/sgor-ieithoedd-lleiafrifedig-phel-droed
[9] https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/fsas20
