Club rivalry is what makes every sport interesting. Fans supporting two different sides often flex about trophies, fanbases and history. And this is no longer now limited to stadia during matchdays. It now goes on in social media too, thanks to its ever-increasing reach among people.
But how often do you get to see a third face in a rivalry of two? And what if the third face turns out to be a country? Well, this is exactly what happened this week!
A Twitter social media research account by the name of San Bass Media (@SanBassMedia) conducted polls between clubs to test the fanbase strength active on the social media of various clubs involved. As it turned out, Kerala Blasters from India did well on various rounds as it coalesced to win the one vs one polls against various clubs.
One such poll took place between KBFC and Turkish Super Lig club Trabzonspor few days back.
A tough fight resulted and both the club fanbases showed their strengths. It was turning out to be a 50-50 situation as none of the two sides wanted to surrender. However, this escalated into an ugly scene as Turkish fans abused and made racial slurs against Indian fans.
Soon, Pakistan got involved this and surprisingly in support of the Turkey, Pakistanis started campaign on Twitter, which started trending in their nation with #VoteForTurkey.
And Trabzonspor won the poll, but the social media channel had to come out and apologize to Kerala Blasters and Indian fans for the racial slurs against them.
Although #VoteForTurkey trended on Twitter in Pakistan, not surprisingly, people were clueless and what resulted thus was nothing short of hilarious.
And some more of these.
There are more than these. But this is suffice to to put the whole thing in a nutshell.
Football should never be mixed with geopolitical disputes.