Sir Keir Starmer opens up on love for Arsenal and Arteta leadership

Sir Keir Starmer looks set to be named as the UK’s new Prime Minister following Thursday’s General Election. The Labour leader will lead the country following what is expected to be a landslide victory over Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives.

He has a huge job on his hands domestically and will now wield a huge amount of power. But our incoming Prime Minister is just like the rest of us at heart – a huge football fan.

The lifelong Arsenal supporter spoke to football.london‘s Tom Canton around a year ago and discussed all things Arsenal as well as his love for playing football. In a mini-documentary put together to showcase Sir Keir’s love of both football and his childhood club Arsenal, which you can watch in full here, it demonstrates the escape that the sport provides for people in all manner of situations.

“It’s fantastic Tom, I think it came through on the video. I’ve been playing football every week since I was ten years old apart from exceptional weekends and/or injuries. So it’s always been that passion for me and whether it’s watching or playing just being able to cut off from the world of politics.

“If you’re watching, you know what it’s like, I’m in the stands with my son, my friends it’s absolutely brilliant. Or playing, where certainly the games I play on the Sunday, nobody really gives a damn what you do for a living, they just want to know you’re a decent person playing football.”

Sir Keir is shown both attending Arsenal and playing with friends alongside his work meeting communities around the country. It can sometimes be difficult to disassociate our political leaders from the people that they are themselves, but sport and football in particular have become critical in bridging that divide for Sir Keir.

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“Yeah, I hope so, I do think it’s really grounding because it’s one of those activities that genuinely brings people together from all walks of life. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, what you’re background is.

“When the whistle goes and you’re on a football pitch, then you are just an individual in a team playing. We always go for a drink afterwards, it’s a collection of people who do different things in their lives coming together out of the love of a sport.

“A very simple sport obviously which is one of the main attractions of football. 22 people, one ball, two goals and ninety minutes to get the ball in the net. That’s the long and the short of it and it’s fantastic.”

As a season ticket holder, Sir Keir regularly attends the men’s game too and last season watched the Gunners come incredibly close to a first Premier League title in 19 years. Mikel Arteta has been at the crux of Arsenal’s rise back to the level of competing for titles and the Spaniard has ingrained new principles of respect, passion and togetherness into the group.

A manager must be a leader, and Arteta has led this group back into the Champions League and hopes to win silverware soon, after back-to-back close run things in the Premier League.

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“What he’s created this season (last season now) is a team. I know that sounds a bit of an odd thing to say but it’s not eleven individuals, he’s created a team that works well together and obviously, because I’m a season ticket holder, there’s the inevitable, we get together for a drink before the game, a whole bunch of us walk down together.

“Afterwards there’s always the question of who’s been the player of the game. This season it’s been really hard because actually the team has played so well and everyone has played well within their teams.

“You compare that with other clubs, Chelsea for example, where a lot of money has been spent but they haven’t created a team. So there’s that.

“But there’s player management which has been incredible. [Granit] Xhaka, I was there the day in 2019 when Xhaka was subbed, took his shirt off and threw it on the ground and there was a very strong feeling that he wouldn’t play for Arsenal again.

“Arteta turned him around to a point where certainly this season he would have been amongst the first on the team sheet every week and where there’s a standing ovation at the last game of the season when it became clear he may be leaving the club. That’s an amazing piece of player management.

“The other example I would give is [Martin] Odegaard, who as soon as he arrived at Arsenal, initially on loan, I thought here is a technically gifted player. Once Arteta made him captain, that gave him authority on the pitch which took his game up a level.

“So I think there’s a lot there to learn about teamwork, about leadership in the way that Arteta has put that team together and has created a team that works well together.”