Sports
How one Irish soccer team turned to social causes to escape bankruptcy
The most valuable piece of real estate for a soccer team isn’t on the pitch, it’s on the front of the players’ jerseys, a foot-wide swath of fabric some companies will pay tens of millions of dollars to rent for a season.
But Bohemian FC, a small but mighty fan-owned club in Dublin, has made its money targeting an area that lies beneath the front of the jersey. Convinced a fan’s beating heart and soul can be worth more than any corporate advertising budget, Bohemian — or Bohs for short — promotes causes, not companies, on its away jerseys. The strategy has turned a club once headed for relegation and financial ruin into the most profitable one in the Irish first division.
“I can’t conceive of any way where Bohs could be in a position that a fan of Bayern Munich in Munich or a fan of Manchester United in Manchester would want to buy a Bohs shirt for football reasons,” Daniel Lambert, the team’s youthful chief operating officer, said last week in a video conference call from Dublin. “But if you bring it to an emotional space, there are people who care. They care about Palestine. They care about the migrant crisis, the climate, could be anything.
“If we can connect with people in different countries and cities around the world on that basis, our potential market is huge.”
How huge? Although Lambert declined to share detailed numbers, he believes most clubs in Ireland’s 10-team Premiership will sell between 100 to 500 away shirts while Bohemian might sell 20,000 or so a season. While other Premiership clubs are lucky to fund 5% of their annual budget through jersey sales, Bohemian is anticipating it will earn about 40% of its revenue from socially conscious shirts that have featured the colors of the Palestinian flag, a tribute to Bob Marley and the slogan “Refugees Welcome” beneath the silhouette of a fleeing family.
“There’s an awful lot of financial logic to this,” said Lambert, 37, whose club funnels much of that profit to migrant-aid groups, charities for the homeless or others providing medical assistant to Palestine.
At a time when many public-facing companies are beating a hasty retreat from anything that smacks of woke culture, Bohemian decided to proudly and defiantly double down on causes from gay marriage and climate change to Palestine and Ireland’s harsh asylum policies. While that has met with some pushback — and has earned the team the nickname “We put any cause on a jersey FC” from some detractors — it might also have saved the 135-year-old club, one of the oldest in Ireland.
A dozen years ago Bohemian entered its worst stretch this century, one that saw it lose more games than it won while finishing in the bottom half of the league table three straight seasons and narrowly escaping relegation. The club’s finances were in worse shape.
“We were bankrupt,” Lambert said. “We had a part-time team; people earning 50 euros a week, 80 euros a week.”
For many games then, Dalymount Park, the team’s 100-plus-year-old stadium in Phibsborough, a diverse neighborhood less than two miles north of Dublin’s center, was two-thirds empty. By 2015, the club’s membership had dropped to 420.
The purpose of the club, an 11-time Irish champion, was to win but, Lambert said, it also had a responsibility to be a force for good. Bohemian was doing neither.
“That led to a bit of introspection, I suppose, in terms of what do we stand for as a football club? What are we about?” said Lambert, who joined the team’s board in 2011, at the start of its slump. “If you’re a club with an awful lot of money, you grow your fan base by winning a lot of trophies. If you don’t have that, what’s another way to appeal to people? The human, emotional level.
“If you engage somebody on a human, emotional level, you’re more likely to get a loyalty from them over a period of time.”
Lambert knows a little bit about marketing since he’s co-owner of Bang Bang Cafe, in the shadow of Dalymount Park — as well as host of an eclectic podcast that emanates from the cafe — and is the manager of the Irish Republican hip-hop band Kneecap. (The Irish Film and Television Academy chose a biopic about the group as its country’s Oscar submission.)
Daniel Lambert, chief operating officer of Bohemian FC, is all smiles during the international solidarity match between his club and Palestine at Dalymount Park in Dublin.
(Stephen McCarthy / Sportsfile via Getty Images)
The plan he helped develop for saving Bohemian didn’t depend on the generosity of a deep-pocketed owner but was, like the team itself, a grassroots effort that began about a decade ago when the club began working with street artists and sold its own beer, christened an in-house poet and began doing community work.
“The strength of most football clubs is how wealthy the owner is. Our strength is how many people are a member, how many people are willing to come to a game,” Lambert said. “That’s our real strength.”
Next came the jersey campaign, although that got off to a rocky start in 2019 when the club placed an image of Jamaican singer Bob Marley on a shirt — and promptly received cease-and-desist letters from the late singer’s representatives. They later came to an agreement allowing Bohemian to re-issue the shirt.
“We kind of outlined to them what we’re about, that we’re a not-for-profit entity and I think they really liked that,” Lambert said. “They respected the history, respected who we were.”
A second shirt, released during the coronavirus pandemic, was white with thin red-and-black diagonal lines and the profile and a man, woman and child sandwiched between the words Refugees Welcome. The club’s crest is above the left breast and the understated logo of O’Neills, an Irish sportswear manufacturer and club sponsor, is on the right side.
With that shirt, meant to call attention to Ireland’s controversial “direct provision” system of housing migrants, gaining international news coverage, Bohemian has seen its merchandise sales increase more than 2,000% while average attendance last season was just 260 fans shy of the capacity of Dalymount Park, where the corner flags are rainbow-hued and a large red-and-black antiracism banner hovers above the supporters’ stand.
The club’s membership, which has grown 600% over the last decade, has been capped at 3,000 to ensure there is a seat at the stadium for all the owners. There is a long list of people waiting to join them.
Bohemian, which kicks off their nine-month-long league season on Feb. 16, has revealed the first of its three 2025 road jerseys. It will carry the logo of the Dublin-based punk band Fontaines D.C., which will open a 26-country tour next month. The home shirt, unveiled last fall, is a red-and-black-striped jersey with the emblem of a local furniture store across the chest.
“We exist in a small football market, but when it comes to values and our ownership model and our structure and our potential to derive new fan bases, to raise money and profile for causes and issues, we can be bigger than Man United,” Lambert said. “Clubs very often don’t take a position on anything. They like to be agnostic because they’re making money.”
Bohemian, on the other hand, makes money precisely because that’s not its main goal. Its aim is to make a difference.
“That enables us,” Lambert said, “to have sales that far outstrip our attendance. To become a part of the global football landscape, in a small way, on issues that aren’t directly related to the players on the pitch.”
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
World Cup tourists are coming to L.A. for the soccer, but they’re staying for the $21 smoothies and Double-Doubles.
As the last Los Angeles FIFA World Cup event ended Friday, soccer fans were eating like locals and famous chains from the region were cashing in.
In the weeks that L.A. has hosted the World Cup, international soccer enthusiasts have flocked to big brands from the area, often in large groups wearing their countries’ jerseys.
It is a phenomenon seen at many of the host cities. In Dallas, giant gas station Buc-ee’s is the main attraction. For people visiting New Jersey, deli shops have been a hot ticket. In L.A., the place to be between matches was Erewhon.
Thirsty international sports fans gathered for pictures outside different Erewhons, wandered their aisles smiling, and, of course, picked up pricey smoothies.
While Erewhon would not comment on its business, mobility data company Arity, which uses phone data to track consumers, said Erewhon visits at the outlets around SoFi Stadium were quadruple what they were a week earlier on June 12, the day of the U.S. national soccer team’s opening match there.
Arity looked at what stores people visited within a 10-mile radius of SoFi that day and also found surges in visitors to nearby El Pollo Loco and Trader Joe’s.
Locals have spotted groups of people in Korea jerseys huddled together, trying to decide what to order at In-N-Out.
Some complained on social media that international tourists at Trader Joe’s were buying up all the mini canvas tote bags.
Soon after the Belgium vs. Spain quarterfinal ended Friday, the In-N-Out near SoFi had a long line of soccer fans stretching out the door in bright red and yellow and black jerseys and matching striped hats and scarves.
One of the workers said he had to explain “spread” and “animal style” to foreign football fans.
“I didn’t know this place existed,” a fan from Romania said while waiting in line.
Los Angeles and other cities and states that have hosted the event need the soccer fans to spend money to make the event worth all the time, effort and money it requires.
A rosy 2024 report projected the World Cup could bring more than $800 million to the L.A. region as 180,000 people converge on the area to sleep, eat and spend.
There were early concerns people weren’t turning up for the event because of the high ticket prices and the difficulty of obtaining visas for citizens of some countries.
However, at least for some L.A. hotels, there was a surge of last-minute visitors which pushed up occupancy and room rates.
While sports fans are not in the region to shop, they do make time for it.
World Cup customer spending is also apparent in beer sales. Andrew Heritage, the chief economist at the Beer Institute said beer purchases at entertainment and attractions in L.A. – outside of World Cup spaces – were up around 10% from normal.
“That tells me that fans in the L.A. area have decided to extend their stay and take in all the other things that the area has to offer, rather than just the match itself,” he said.
On social media, the purpose of these shoppers is clear: grab a quick souvenir or local specialty and take a selfie.
The data from Arity suggests that fans are very efficient when they spend at local spots, diving in, getting what they want and getting out as soon as possible, said Jeff Schlitt, a director at the company.
“Normally you’re there for an hour. They’re going to be there for 15, 18 minutes,” he said. “Why is that? Because they were purpose-driven shoppers.”
For some travelers, the more popular American chains aren’t unfamiliar. But some of the native L.A. fare still comes as a surprise.
As one Belgium-Spain matchgoer from the Netherlands stood taking a picture of the In-N-Out sign after the game, he said he’d never had a burger like the one he’d just tried.
“We only have McDonald’s and Burger King,” he said. “It’s way better.”
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The face of baseball will not be at Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his start on Friday as the Los Angeles Dodgers said he will also miss the Midsummer Classic with what the team called left knee irritation.
Ohtani, for obvious reasons, has become an All-Star Game fixture. He has earned the honor in each of the past five seasons and made his first start in 2021.
Starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers warms up before the MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 03, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
The two-way phenom is on his way to winning his fifth MVP award in his last six seasons as he is hitting .290 with a .939 OPS and pitching to a minuscule 1.79 ERA, the second-lowest in the sport among pitchers with 80-plus innings. His OPS is also the seventh-best mark in the league.
The Dodgers said Ohtani will be the team’s designated hitter up until the break, but he will “have some interventions on his knee to put him in the best position for the second half of the season.”
Ohtani dealt with knee issues earlier in the season.
It is certainly a big hit for the game as the other face of the sport, Aaron Judge, will miss the game due to a fractured rib that has kept him out since late May.
Shohei Ohtani #17 of the Los Angeles Dodgers gets ready in the on deck circle against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on June 01, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images) (Norm Hall/Getty Images)
DODGERS WILL AGAIN VISIT WHITE HOUSE TO CELEBRATE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP, OFFICIAL SAYS
Ohtani hit 99 home runs combined in 2024 and 2025, leading the National League with a 1.025 OPS in that span. Ohtani did not pitch in 2024 after elbow surgery but returned to the bump last year and owned a 2.87 ERA and 11.9 K/9, a figure he also put up in 2022 that led the American League.
The “Japanese Babe Ruth” is the only player in MLB history to have 300-plus plate appearances and 40-plus innings in six separate seasons (Ruth only did it twice and never stole 50 bases), and he has more than excelled at both.
Shohei Ohtani pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on May 13, 2026. (Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn Images)
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Ohtani is not hitting like he has in the past, but certainly the best pitching performance of his career will make up for it. He “only” has 20 homers and 56 RBI this season.
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If Mikel Merino is sleeping, please don’t wake him. If the last week has been a dream, he’d just as soon keep dreaming.
Because on Friday, for the second time in five days, Merino came off the bench for the final five minutes of a World Cup knockout game and scored the winning goal, the latest lifting Spain to a 2-1 victory over Belgium and into next week’s semifinal against France in Arlington, Texas.
“Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what’s happening right now, right?” Merino said in Spanish. “Honestly, it’s crazy.”
How crazy? Merino has played less than 10 minutes in the last two games and has two goals. He’s taken four shots in the World Cup and put two of them in the back of the net, the first in stoppage time to beat Portugal in the Round of 16 and in the 88th minute Friday to beat Belgium in a quarterfinal and extend Spain’s unbeaten to streak to 36 games.
“I don’t really even know what to say. I still can’t quite believe it,” Merino said.
Yet Spain’s final substitution, which brought on Merino in the 86th minute, wasn’t the only one that figured heavily in the result. Fifteen minutes earlier Belgian coach Rudi Garcia sent backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens on for Thibaut Courtois — not by choice, by necessity.
The dropoff in talent wasn’t great — Lammens started 32 times for Manchester United this season — but the difference in experience was. Courtois was playing in his 21st World Cup game, second-most all-time, and he had been brilliant up to then.
But he tweaked a muscle making a save minutes earlier and dropped to the turf just before the second-half hydration break. After being attended to by the team’s trainers, he tried to continue but couldn’t, eventually hobbling to the sideline and collapsing on the bench in tears.
“We didn’t want his injury to get worse. That’s why I subbed him off,” Garcia said.
“It’s part and parcel of high-level sport. You need to be concentrated, 100% focused, and need to be able to perform. I did not want to put players on the pitch who were not 100%.”
The margin between Belgium and Spain, after all, is a small one, even if the teams took completely different routes to the quarterfinal.
Spain, which hadn’t gone past the Round of 16 in a World Cup since 2010 when it won its only title, had gone a record six games and 609 minutes without allowing a World Cup goal, dating to the group stage of the last tournament four years ago.
Spain midfielder Mikel Merino scores off a rebound in front of Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the second half of Spain’s 2-1 quarterfinal win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday at SoFi Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
You could binge watch two seasons of “Abbott Elementary” in that time.
But if Spain, the reigning European champion, and goalkeeper Unai Simón were the immovable objects, Belgium, playing in the quarterfinals for the third time in four World Cups, was an unstoppable force. With 12 goals in the last three games, it entered the quarterfinals with the third-most goals in the tournament. And no team had taken more shots.
Spain struck first, with Fabián Ruiz giving La Roja a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the tournament in the 30th minute. The sequence started with Pedro Porro sending a cross into the box for Dani Olmo, whose shot was parried away by Courtois. But Ruiz pounced on the rebound and deflected a shot off defender Timothy Castagne and into the back of the net.
In any other game of this tournament, that would have been enough for Simón. But not against Belgium, which ended Spain’s shutout streak in the 41st minute on a brilliant header from Charles De Keterlaere, who shielded Pau Cubarsí with his body and one-hopped a Castagne cross past a flat-footed Simón for his third goal in two games.
“The record and the milestones are there,” Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente said of his goalkeeper’s record streak. “It’s been decades since the last record was set. And perhaps somebody will break the clean-sheet record.
“But it’s going to be many, many years before that happens.”
Belgium opened the game up a bit when Garcia brought Romelu Lukaku, the country’s all-time leading scorer, on at the hour mark. But Courtois was called to make two saves in the next three minutes and came up lame after the second.
Shorty after he came off, De la Fuente summoned Merino over.
“He didn’t say much to me,” Merino said. “He told me I was coming in as the No. 10. And then, as the game was coming to an end, he told me I was incredible.
“Those are the only two things he said to me.”
The first shot Lammens faced came moments later, when Cubarsí put a one-hop shot on goal from distance. The keeper dove to his right to stop it with both hands, but the ball skipped just before it reached he and Lammens had trouble with the rebound, pushing it toward the edge of the six-yard box for Merino, who tapped it in.
“Unfortunately, to beat a team of this caliber, you need luck on your side,” Garcia, the Belgian coach, said. And the stars didn’t align for us.”
So while Belgium goes home, Spain goes to Texas for Tuesday’s semifinal with France, the only team in the world ranked ahead of it.
“Ever since the World Cup started, everyone has been waiting for this match,” Spanish wunderkind Lamine Yamal said. “I’ve been really looking forward to it. To me, they’re the two best teams in the World Cup.
“If anyone can take on France with confidence, it’s us.”
Especially if Merino keeps dreaming.
Sports editor Iliana Limón Romero contributed to this story.
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