AS A Trump rally at Madison Square Garden took centre stage in a typically awkward but nevertheless concerning manner in New York City in the build-up to the 2024 United States presidential election, the city’s grassroots soccer scene is providing an antidote.
Throughout the city, people from all walks of life come together to play sports on a daily basis and below the surface, beneath the major leagues, is an active and organic grassroots soccer scene.
Even if it is not always explicitly political, grassroots soccer in New York City carries a message in its very being that pushes back against the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Donald Trump and his cronies.
Many of New York City’s oldest soccer clubs emerged from immigrant communities. Names like the Pancyprian Freedoms, Greek Americans, and Ukrainians are well-known among the grassroots scene, while newer teams continue to embrace the diversity of this global city.
On Friday, nine members of one local community soccer club, New York International FC (NYIFC), continued the club’s partnership with the local soup kitchen and mutual aid organisation, EV Loves NYC, volunteering to help cook the meals that are sent out across the city to those in need.
As its name suggests, NYIFC is a club made up of New Yorkers with roots spread across the world.
NYIFC and EV Loves NYC naturally crossed paths through shared aims for the communities within the city.
Both have grown since their formations at a similar time in 2019, and a community soccer club has proved to be a natural partner for the work carried out by a mutual aid organisation.
NYIFC players have regularly helped out at the kitchen in the years since the two entities became aware of each others’ work, and both organisations have progressed on and off the field.
NYIFC, along with many other clubs in New York’s Cosmopolitan Soccer League (CSL), regularly play home games on Randall’s Island, which is situated to the east of Manhattan and south of The Bronx between the Harlem River and the East River.
The island has become home to the largest migrant shelter in the city amid a so-called migrant crisis in recent years.
Stays in the shelter have been limited to anywhere between 30 to 60 days, and even families with children are now limited to 60 days having previously not faced any time limit.
On the back of those regular evictions, a community has formed on the island made up of those kicked out of the shelter.
As part of this, services such as outdoor barbershops, bodegas, and other vendors selling food and drink have formed within this mini-community, set up and run by its members.
This can be useful for soccer players and supporters on matchdays as, despite its large number of soccer fields, Randall’s Island is fairly isolated with few provisions available for those visiting.
New York International’s head of community engagement, Nicholas Alexandrakos, is hoping to involve these communities with NYIFC, and by extension the work of EV Loves NYC.
“The coaching staff are already carpooling to every game on Randall’s. They are bringing all the necessary equipment like the tent [effectively the dugout], the defibrillator, the Veo which records and streams matches and the soccer gear,” says Alexandrakos.
“If we can get some of the migrants, who are living in their own tents outside the Randall’s Island camp, to an NYIFC match, we’d like to set up a pre-game hangout where EV Loves NYC can provide a few meals.
“The coaches would have no problem finding space for a few trays of food. This is what it means to be a part of a community club in NYC. We’ll find the space.”
As EV Loves NYC recently moved their soup kitchen operation from East Village to a larger kitchen in the south of Greenwich Village, they have been able to expand their services, retaining the old base as part of their distribution efforts.
This could once again tie in with the community work of NYIFC and its current presence on Randall’s Island.
One such crossover may be the new CV-building service that EV Loves NYC now provides for migrants who volunteer in the kitchen.
Volunteers from any background can learn numerous skills from cooking to distribution and everything else involved with contributing to such a mutual aid organisation. They can then add this experience to their CV.
Having gained promotion last season, NYIFC are also making an impact on the local soccer community in a sporting sense.
They now play in Division 1 of the CSL for the 2024/25 season and have got off to an encouraging start at this higher level and currently sit fourth in the table.
Though this is the top division of the CSL, there is still potential for further progress to be made by securing promotion to the Eastern Premier Soccer League (EPSL).
The EPSL acts as a pinnacle for several local leagues on the East Coast from Massachusetts to Maryland and has the potential to join with other similar national and regional leagues to form a pyramid in the United States similar to the one seen in England.
Though New York is known for its big-name sports teams in baseball, American football, basketball and ice hockey, there is lots of participation in soccer across its fields and parks.
Randall’s Island especially, with its large number of pitches, is very much a soccer island.
Even as NYIFC searches for a permanent home ground of their own in the city, they will retain links to these communities that emerged alongside them on Randall’s, and continue to contribute to the wider region via the work with EV Loves NYC.
Much of the rhetoric around this presidential election will be anti-immigrant, and while Trump sits in his New York tower and has his unfunny comedians, some of whom try to pass as politicians, make “jokes” about Puerto Ricans and peddle anti-immigrant lines borrowed from a Nazi rally at MSG in 1939, grassroots soccer is working to tackle real issues on the ground.
