Cheering For The Ancestral Home Team

We’ll be supporting many different nations in this year’s World Cup. About 28.5 million Brits will tune into the World Cup this summer and 9.4 million will be placing support on another team instead of England. Results from our research reveals which nations will be cheered for by Brits this summer:

• Brazil, Spain, Germany and Argentina are the other nations that British football fans are most likely to support.
• Family ties account for almost a quarter of football fans choosing another nation.
• Strong ancestral links to Germany and Australia mean they rank highly in the nations we’ll be supporting this summer.
• Family ties to another nation (23%) are as influential in deciding which team to support as a country’s chances of winning (22%).
• Brighton and Sheffield have emerged as the most patriotic cities in England

The UK’s cultural diversity as a nation will be more pronounced than ever this summer on the world football stage. According to our research almost double the number of football fans will cheer on another nation’s team because of a family link (23%) over a favourite player playing for that team (13%).

Brighton and Sheffield proved the most patriotic cities in England (98% and 97%), compared with Birmingham and Liverpool (78%). Glasgow (26%) and Belfast (42%) are the cities within the UK showing the least support for the England football team, while the East of England is the region most likely to fly the flag in support of England this summer. From our research the appearance of support of countries like Australia, Spain, Germany and Nigeria in Living DNA’s alternative league table are thought to be due to strong ancestral links with these countries.

"Our increasingly varied genetic mix means that more and more people are likely to support more than one team in major sporting tournaments in future. It’s interesting to see the blend of European countries and more global ones in the top 10 teams we’ll be supporting. In the case of countries like Germany and Spain, we’ve seen migration since the middle ages with noble and royal intermarriages tightly intertwining our nations. Brazil and Australia may appear highly due to more recent socio-economic migration in the last decades impacting our cultural make-up. Either way, it’s positive to see so much global support for what is fast becoming an international football fan"~ David Nicholson, Co-Founder, Living DNA.

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