'Why support a team that loses?'

Bit of a non story. Why else would they support a team from a foreign country?

I'd imagine 99% of foreign fans of any PL club are glory hunters that attached themselves to that club simply because it was winning things at the time they got into football.

comment by Barf Vader (U15867)
posted 6 minutes ago
I'd imagine 99% of foreign fans of any PL club are glory hunters that attached themselves to that club simply because it was winning things at the time they got into football.
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I'm a 1%er Hurrah,

comment by Barf Vader (U15867)
posted 8 minutes ago
I'd imagine 99% of foreign fans of any PL club are glory hunters that attached themselves to that club simply because it was winning things at the time they got into football.
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Thankfully in the 1% here. Always loved spurs

Oh well I thought it was an interesting conversation to be had.

Apparently not.

More overseas United fans have probably jumped ship today.

Different regions different stereotypical reasons.
East Asians tend to favour individuals over a team. As exampled in your article with Mitoma. Arsenal had an increase in Japanese support when Inamoto was there, Spurs obviously have a lot of South Korean. But it isn't limited to their home players, players like Ronaldo get the same "pop star" treatment, and fans are likely to follow the player from team to team.

In West Africa there is a more fanatical support, where people seem to think they have to take things to the extremes to show they are a true fan. Rivalries are more important to them - and these don't always follow the traditional rivalry we have over here. Seems to be a social status in some areas of WA.

Accessibility to teams is also probably a factor for many of the team choices. A bit different now, of course, but going back a few years they wouldn't see most teams, only the best on TV and tours were nowhere near as common as now. So a Man Utd turning up to your city back then probably was a big sway.

comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 20 minutes ago
Different regions different stereotypical reasons.
East Asians tend to favour individuals over a team. As exampled in your article with Mitoma. Arsenal had an increase in Japanese support when Inamoto was there, Spurs obviously have a lot of South Korean. But it isn't limited to their home players, players like Ronaldo get the same "pop star" treatment, and fans are likely to follow the player from team to team.

In West Africa there is a more fanatical support, where people seem to think they have to take things to the extremes to show they are a true fan. Rivalries are more important to them - and these don't always follow the traditional rivalry we have over here. Seems to be a social status in some areas of WA.

Accessibility to teams is also probably a factor for many of the team choices. A bit different now, of course, but going back a few years they wouldn't see most teams, only the best on TV and tours were nowhere near as common as now. So a Man Utd turning up to your city back then probably was a big sway.
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I can understand following your nations players but that's hardly being a fan of that team and as far as following a player like Ronaldo from team to team is just pathetic.
As far as accessibility goes that's probably true but when I first started following Leeds I could only get the games on radio.

Sad thing is you just know there are club accountants sitting there wishing the squad could contain a couple of Indians, couple of Chinese, and a significant Japanese, Indonesian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Ethiopian, Mexican & Brazilian.

'Why support a team that loses?'

Because they are just armchair fans, move on from team to team, whoever is winning. Might be 'fans' of winning teams, but not true supporters imho.