What’s it really like being married to a football fan?

The FIFA World Cup has been in full swing since the first whistle on Jun 11, and many of us have been adjusting our work and sleep schedules to catch late-night and early-morning matches, organising watch parties with friends, and taking note of kick-off times.

I am, however, not talking about football fans.

I’m talking about a breed in the football ecosystem that doesn’t get nearly as much attention: the wives of football fans.

Football has an incredibly massive fanbase. According to FIFA, roughly five billion people worldwide watched at least one 2022 World Cup match. Meanwhile, the English Premier League 2024-25 season saw a weekly global audience of 1.87 billion, according to Win Sports Online.

No doubt, a good portion are women who can explain an offside, analyse a formation and tell you exactly how a player substitution changed the match.

This isn’t about them.

This is about us, non-fans with little interest in the sport, who "married into" football and very quickly realised how much space it took up in our lives.

We can now tell the position of our partner’s favourite team on the league table and confidently name at least three players from their favourite club (five, on a particularly good day).

This is one of the strange yet charming things about marriage: You learn the language that brings your spouse joy, then slowly figure out how to support it.

If that language is football, something else also happens.

You become unexpectedly competitive and even protective of your spouse’s team. You find yourself caring about a game that never really interested you.

You may not understand every technical detail – I surely don’t – but you appreciate why so many people love it.

SUPPORTING THE SPOUSE’S CLUB – NO MATTER WHAT

The cardinal rule when you marry into football? Support your spouse’s club, no matter what.

So goodbye to the tiny bit of Liverpool loyalty I inherited from my father. My allegiance had to shift to Arsenal – or at least convincingly pretend it had.

My husband fell in love with football more than 20 years ago, during Arsenal’s Invincibles era in the English Premier League (EPL), when the club went an entire league season without losing a single game. That made him a lifelong supporter.

Before a match, I’ll catch him glued to his phone, reading line-ups and injury updates. During the game, I’ll hear the occasional shouting at the referee, disbelief at a missed chance, or triumphant celebration after a goal.

If his team wins, he’ll happily spend the rest of the evening reading blogs, watching analysis videos and reliving the goals. If they lose, let’s just say it’s probably not the best time to ask him about new furniture.

Over the years, I’ve watched his football shirt collection grow. I now own an Arsenal shirt, too. My son, let’s be honest, never had any say in the matter. And oh, it was so, so sweet to witness the team take the Premier League title this year, after 22 years – because it brought so much joy to our home.

In the World Cup, my husband has a soft spot for the underdogs. By extension, I also support the same countries he does.

During the 2022 World Cup, I went along with his unwavering support for Morocco, only for us to feel crushing disappointment after witnessing the team’s loss in the semi-finals.

This year, I’ve listened to his passionate arguments for the underdogs who have captured his heart – Japan, Egypt, Morocco again. Regardless of my knowledge of the players and their history, I know the countries I’m supposed to root for.

UNDERSTANDING THE BEAUTIFUL GAME WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT’S GOING ON

At first, I didn’t really care much about the team itself. I wanted them to win because my husband’s mood – and therefore, the energy of the household – depended on the final score.

Along the way, however, I began to get involved. My interest is piqued when I see headlines related to player transfers, and I can even keep up with banter between fans of rival clubs or countries – gleefully teasing them when we win, and pretending to hide if our team loses.

Football’s accessibility and people-centric elements make it so much fun to enjoy, even as someone who is fan-adjacent.

I’ve watched my husband, an introvert who avoids talking to strangers at all costs, happily greet people he has never met simply because they are wearing an Arsenal jersey or a vintage Japan football shirt.

You don’t need to speak football fluently to be invited to celebrate, groan, or shout at the referee along with everyone else. Seeing people cry over a goal or a missed chance, while witnessing thousands of strangers experience the same emotion together, is moving.

I still wouldn’t call myself a full-on football fan. Despite my husband explaining, for the umpteenth time, what the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system does and why a particular substitution says everything about the team manager’s game plan, I still can’t repeat the rules back to you.

Unlike sports such as fencing, baseball or golf – all of which I have tried watching but got completely lost – football asks very little of the viewer. The objective is wonderfully simple: Get the ball into the other team’s net.

Because of that, I can usually tell when a team is dominating possession, helped by the fact that everyone is wearing matching jerseys. I can feel it when the entire stadium collectively holds its breath because the ball is inches from the goal. And I definitely know when someone scores.

LEARNING ABOUT THE WORLD THROUGH FOOTBALL

Because of my husband, I became familiar not only with some players, but also with the wider world surrounding the game.

I have learnt why underdog victories feel especially sweet, and picked up life lessons, one being that no matter how many goals a team can lead by at the start of the match, nothing is ever certain until the final whistle blows.

Another thing I picked up is also how closely linked football is to politics, money, race, national identity, environmental criticism and global inequality.

And perhaps because the sport is so big, so beloved and so deeply tied to people, governments, corporations and unimaginable amounts of wealth, controversy is inevitable.

My husband’s love for the sport has also led me to pay closer attention to the controversies surrounding the sport and the World Cup.

A recent example was FIFA’s decision to overturn the suspension of American player Folarin Balogun following intervention from United States president Donald Trump ahead of the US-Belgium match, which drew condemnation against political interference in the game.

Football also continues to wrestle with racism directed at Black and dark-skinned players, criticism over the environmental cost of tournaments, and questions about the influence of money, states and governing bodies on what is supposed to be the world’s game.

I only came across these stories because my husband shares more football lore and drama than I ever expected to absorb. Along the way, football taught me far more about the world than I could ever imagine.

Whenever the issues around football come up, however, my husband always concludes with the same point: “The politics can be dirty, but football is still the people’s sport.”

What he means is that the game is meant to be enjoyed with other people – fans and rivals alike – and is accessible to both players and viewers, no matter their economic background and level of talent.

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