Footy-loving PM Andy Burnham has taken visiting Canadian premier Mark Carney to an Everton match, as both of them are fans of the Toffees.
The pair saw their team beat Wolves in a Carabao Cup tie at the Hill Dickinson Stadium last week. But Carney isn’t the only foreign leader with surprising links to British clubs, as James Moore reveals…
Kim Jong Un: North Korea’s dictator is apparently a Man Utd supporter. In 2014 it was reported that he’d ordered state TV to show their matches, with striker Wayne Rooney a particular favourite. A few years later Italian senator Antonio Razzi confirmed the tubby tyrant’s love of the beautiful game and his allegiance to the Red Devils.
Fidel Castro: Did you know that Cuba’s former Communist leader was a Gooner? Legend has it that his love affair with the club began during their 1970–71 league and FA Cup double-winning season. It’s said he was desperate to travel to France to watch the London side play in a match against Auxerre in 1995, but the trip had to be cancelled for security reasons.
Dalai Lama: Bizarrely, the Tibetan spiritual leader sent a message of support to Bradford City ahead of their League Cup final match in 2013. He’d previously been given a Bantams shirt on a trip to Yorkshire, after fans had noticed how the club’s claret and amber strip matched the colours of the traditional robes worn by Tibetan Buddhist monks. Bradford lost the match 5-0 to Swansea.
Harald V: Norway’s last king, who died last month at the age of 98, was a huge Spurs supporter. He began following Tottenham while studying in Oxford during the 1960s. They won the league and the FA Cup final in 1961 and, in 2018, the monarch described their side at the time as “superbly the best”.
Barack Obama: Five years before being elected to serve in the White House in 2008, the ex-POTUS made a trip to watch West Ham at Upton Park while visiting his half-sister Auma in London. After Obama won the election, the club invited him back.
Bill Clinton: While studying as a Rhodes scholar at university in Oxford during the 1960s, the former US President would travel to Stamford Bridge to cheer on Chelsea FC, though it’s a myth that his daughter was named after the club – she actually got the moniker from Joni Mitchell song Chelsea Morning.
Robert Mugabe: The controversial former leader of Zimbabwe, who died aged 95 in 2019, was also a Blues fan. He said: “I always want them to score. Even my wife knows where to sit because while they are scoring in the field I will also be scoring at home, kicking everything in front of me.”