It seemed like any other Sunday, but it wasn’t. The atmosphere was the usual one in the Millerntor-Stadionin Hamburg, with thousands of brown jackets, flags flying with the pirate skull, others with the rainbow – representative of the LGBT+ community -, of Palestine and with the face of the Argentine guerrilla Ernesto Guevara, the Che. From the drawing of a Zapatista doing a Chilean on top of a red star or the mural of two men kissing accompanied by the legend “the only thing that matters is love”, each painted on the walls of the stadium, which emulates a canvas of the free expression, seemed to join in singing with the fans who were impatiently awaiting the 90 minutes that marked the conclusion of the game.
With a 3-1 result over VfL Osnabrück, comfortably beating their rival, the final whistle sounded. Thousands of euphoric St. Pauli fans invaded the field and made the green grass disappear like a stampede of ants. The punk team, called “the most progressive club in the world”, sealed its return to the elite of German football after 13 years in the second division.
“It is not a place for homophobia, fascism, sexism and racism.” It is the motto of Sankt Pauli, named after the district where it is located in Hamburg’s red light district. Its followers are prostitutes, rockers, poets, punks, anarchists and communists who, every weekend, display banners with Nazi swastikas crossed out with the prohibition sign. It was founded in 1910, but it was not until the 1980s when the club began to increase its legend as an “anti-system” and “anti-capitalist” team. Their uniforms, which are predominantly brown, emulate the clothing of the workers of the time, who were the core of the institution from its beginnings. They are not sponsored by Nike or Adidas, they make their own clothing under the “ecologically sustainable” brand DIIY. In addition, The League Pirates They became the first club to have an openly gay president and activist of the LGBT+ cause, the theater entrepreneur Corny Littmann.
Just as the rejection of racism and fascism has been a constant in the club’s ideology, so was and is its interest in international social work, which has led it to maintain friendship and cultural ties with different Latin American countries. One of them was Cuba, a country where St. Pauli did its preseason in 2005. That year’s squad delved into the daily life of the island, which generated sympathy and admiration for the figures of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. After several friendly matches, that year’s visit culminated in a friendly match against the Antillean nation’s football team.
![St. Pauli fans celebrate on the Millerntor-Stadion pitch in Hamburg, Germany, on May 12.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/KNTS3USIKCYZ64WFOFNQTFXGIE.jpg?auth=291390a395595240d2689f81a3f847a683689f0acbe0ed47b5825cb80ab4fd00&width=414)
That visit was the seed of the Viva association with Agua Sankt Pauli, which the player Bejamin Adrion led after his retirement. The project, financed by the club and fans in Hamburg, built 150 water pumps for schools in Havana, which would later continue to expand to other countries around the world to promote campaigns for access to drinking water.
“The revolution, at least the football revolution, cannot occur in a single country. That is why in this long internationalist battle, the members and supporters of Sankt Pauli have come to show unimaginable displays of brotherhood in the field of sport. In the 1980s, several players from the team enlisted in the Solidarity Brigades with the Sandinista Revolution and traveled to Nicaragua to give their support to the process led by Daniel Ortega and Tomás Borge,” says journalist Mariano Schuster in an article.
![St. Pauli flags on a soccer field in Mexico City.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/7GO23OOW4ZDSTD7Y525JP3HTZY.jpeg?auth=fa944790d1513ed6a14e8fec9f33a8d45f51554cffa16d2ecabe7a931f7a863d&width=414)
Music and “rebel football”: the relationship of the pirate group with Mexico
Another movement with which St. Pauli sympathized over the years was that of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), in Mexico, led by Subcommander Marcos. In 2021, a football event took place, supporting and solidarity with the indigenous communities of the State of Chiapas. Within the framework of the trip that an EZLN delegation made through Europe, in a direct exchange with the social and leftist movements of the old continent, the pirate club received this delegation for a friendly match and an exchange on “rebel soccer.”
![St. Pauli fans during a derby between their women's team and Hamburger SV, in 2023.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/NWBYNJMNGNBDRIO2RBCCZ43NKU.jpg?auth=76200b6b7bd24d06b8b9d98a713fb59c4fa95bfa0bb8bfad5d52741f6cd9b122&width=414)
The female subsidiary of the pirate group received the Zapatista team of Ixchel Ramona, made up of militia members. The name of the Mexican team comes from Mayan mythology, from the goddess of love and medicine, and as a tribute to Commander Ramona, a veteran trained in liberation theology and who was the first Zapatista to leave rebel territory by breaking the Army siege in 1996.
“That the Ixchel Ramona team of 36 indigenous and militia women can reach the sports fields in European countries has a double symbolic message: brotherhood with other colleagues and the example of teamwork from military discipline. That is, it is not only about ‘athletes’, but about those who have trained in mountains and jungles to integrate collective work,” says anthropologist Juan Trujillo Limones in a opinion text.
St. Pauli’s relationship with Mexico has also occurred through music. The club maintains a fraternal relationship with the ska band Panteón Rococó, who on one of their tours through Germany, through Missael Oseguera – saxophonist of the group –, noted the philosophy of the institution based on the motto “ama Sankt Pauli, hates racism,” and they began to become close. For the club’s centenary, they invited the musicians to perform a version of Das Herz Von St. Pauli (the heart of St. Pauli), by Hans Albers, sung in German and Spanish, with which they closed the commemorative concert 14 years ago in Hamburg and with which they celebrated the promotion of the club, through their social networksThe last Sunday.
“Me from St. Pauli. I am a fan. Antifascist by vocation. And the colors of my flag, Bleiben Mainsof unity, the skull that means that inside we are the same,” says a fragment of the version performed by Panteón Rococó.
The club has more than 530 registered fan clubs around the world. There are offices in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, with the FC St. Pauli Block Mexico. Javier Saldaña Izquierdo, 36 years old, has been a fan of the club for 14 years, when a friend made him listen to the Panteón Rococó song dedicated to St. Pauli. Last Sunday, due to the time difference, he was following the game from five in the morning. By the time the second and third goals were scored, he admits, he was crying with happiness, while they celebrated the promotion of his beloved club, even though the neighbors scolded them for the noise they made early in the morning.
He researched more about the institution and became another follower. “This ideology of directing ourselves with love and that there is no superiority in any sense. That we help each other in generalities, because we are equal, regardless of color, is what has made me change, deconstruct myself and live based on this thought,” he says.
![Javier Saldaña Izquierdo (second to last from left to right) along with other members of the Mexican St. Pauli bloc before giving away soccer balls at a charity event in Tlatelolco (Mexico City).](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/6MLNWKVBSNG7DGUT6P66H3PV6A.jpeg?auth=227c652a18906c2c2b722c800ca2d63b33957e811f7e7b8e7e64deceb8fd25ac&width=414)
Starting from the example of the pirate group, based on their statutes, they have tried to “tropicalize” the ideals of the club based on the problems that exist in Mexico and have started to work with different projects, from supporting boys, girls and adolescents in a street situation with the practice of sports such as boxing and mixed martial arts; or supporting a support house for migrants, who are in transit to try to reach the United States, with medical and psychological help, among other solidarity projects. Although far from Hamburg, on another continent, the values are maintained. “We fell in love with St. Pauli because of the inclusion and the horizontality of the community. We believe that another society is possible, as long as we all stand shoulder to shoulder helping each other,” he concludes.
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