Pakistani support for Glasgow’s Old Firm football clubs

Abstract

Primary data was used to analyse the views and opinions held by Pakistani-Scots in Greater Glasgow, Scotland, about whether they prefer Celtic or Rangers Football Clubs. The question is important, sociologically, due to Celtic’s Irish-Catholic-Republican sympathies and Rangers’ British-Loyalist-Unionist perspective, neither of which seems to naturally gel with the Muslim orientation of Glasgow’s Pakistanis (8.1% of the city’s population). The research method was a survey of 51 respondents, all ethnic-Pakistanis ordinarily resident in Greater Glasgow, and a total of 5 interviews. Results reveal that the majority of survey respondents prefer Celtic over Rangers and 86% would support a new Asian/Muslim club. But how it would be formed, whether all players would be Asian, and how it would be received were all hotly-debated topics.