Picture this area of the field, except a lot emptier.
Picture this area of the field, except a lot emptier. Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images

Sounders fans had plenty to cheer about Sunday in their team’s 4-2 win, but by the end of the match the Sounders’ most loyal supporters were nowhere to be seen. Hundreds of fans had left the CenturyLink stadium mid-game after officials stopped them from flying an anti-fascist flag because it was too overtly political.

Major League Soccer (MLS) is trying to censor liberal politics at its soccer games and if Sunday’s game, or a recent game in Portland, are any signal, Pacific Northwest soccer fans aren’t ready to give up.

Sunday’s game is the latest flare-up in a long simmering fight between MLS and the league’s fans over how political spectators are allowed to be at matches. For years, MLS has actively courted the European and South American style of soccer fandom, where supporters develop deep, almost religious allegiances to formally organized clubs. The MLS succeeded in creating these fan clubs—which has helped boost participation in the young league—but now executives are grappling with their own idea coming home to roost in the form of lefty politics in American stadiums.

Here’s a photo of the nearly vacant fan section at CenturyLink Field (called the Brougham End) after officials kicked a flag-waving fan out.

The flag in question is the so-called “Iron Front” flag, a banner with three parallel arrows that was used by anti-Nazi organizers in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler banned the Iron Front out of Germany in 1933 and MLS took a similar tack earlier this year, telling fans that they could wear the Iron Front logo on T-shirts but Iron Front flag-waving would not be tolerated.

The fans are not complying. At an August 23 match between the rivals Sounders and Portland Timbers, supporters from both sides protested the Hitler-esque ban by staying silent for the first 33 minutes of the game and then erupting into song, singing an Italian anti-fascist folk song. Three Timbers fans were kicked out of the next Timbers match and banned for three games after they brought their own Iron Front flags.


Sunday’s protest in Seattle started after the leader of the fan section, a person called a “capo” who stands at the bottom of the stands with their back to the field so they can lead fans in chants and whatnot, started waving the Iron Front flag. Game officials kicked the capo out, so hundreds of members of the capo’s club, called the Emerald City Supporters, left the game.

MLS is now inadvertently finding itself in a thorny situation. It appears they are caught between either (1) defending the hegemony of American white nationalism (which is in the blood of all of our sports) by banning anti-fascist expression, or (2) allowing lefty sports fans to fly explicitly anti-fascist flags that threaten to offend Republicans and cut into the league’s attempt to expand its fan base and profits. I have reached out to MLS for comment on whether this is about protecting profits and the feelings of Republicans, and will post their response as soon as I hear back.

Iron Front supporters are essentially pushing the MLS to confront a century-long lie: that American sports are apolitical. Europe and Latin America have never bought into the deception that sports are politically neutral. They let their soccer (football) fans show their politics. Even the lower classes get to display the politics they feel most aligned with, and often those European fans are supporting explicitly fascist, racist politics (Bill Buford’s book, Among the Thugs, is an excellent introduction to fascist soccer fans).

But American professional leagues have always attempted to whitewash stadiums into only showing the politics of rich/white hegemony: singing the National Anthem, flying war planes overhead, putting American flags on every surface possible, praying to Jesus at high school football games, etc. These are acceptable political acts at sporting events because these are the politics of the ruling class. These political acts feel comfortable—the American flag looks nice—but what they suggest can be deeply uncomfortable to the powerless. They are the politics of perpetuating war crimes in Iraq, the politics of perpetuating police violence against black people, the politics of perpetuating tax breaks for billionaires while defunding social programs that keep poor people alive. Sports in America can only reinforce political ideas that are comfortable to the dominant class. Veering off these nationalistic tracks, be it Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem or Sounders fans flying an antifascist flag, is taboo in the American stadium.

A meeting has been scheduled between members of Emerald City Supporter, the club that vacated CenturyLink Field on Sunday, and league officials on Thursday in Las Vegas. We’ll learn more after that meeting if MLS wants to continue to take political messaging cues from Hitler.

Update: 3 p.m.

MLS responded to my inquiry with this statement. I’ve copied it in full below:

“Since our inception in 1996, MLS and its clubs have had a strong commitment to our core values of diversity and inclusion. These values have been an important part of the way we think and operate on and off the field.

Unlike all of the other major North American sports leagues, our fans are encouraged to show their passion and support for their clubs through the use of TIFO displays and other signs and banners.

Our fan code of conduct policy, which was coordinated with our clubs, prohibits signs that promote any political organization, including the Iron Front flag, which is associated with Antifa.

Major League Soccer fully and wholeheartedly condemns racism, discrimination, fascism and any form of hatred. We and our clubs will continue to permit signs that support basic human rights, as the rainbow pride flag does, as well as those that condemn racism and fascism.

The prohibition on political signage is in place to support the overwhelming majority of MLS fans who come to our stadiums to enjoy a great soccer game. All of our fans and supporters are important to us and we will continue to engage with them to ensure that we deliver an incredible experience for all.”

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Lester Black is a former staff writer for The Stranger, where he wrote about Seattle news, cannabis, and beer. He is sometimes sober.