CLAPTON Community FC and New York International FC (NYIFC) initially met through connections to a New York Cosmos supporters group who became involved with NYIFC while the Cosmos were on hiatus.

A direct link was then formed when winger Josh Adejokun, who was one of Clapton CFC’s original players at their formation in 2018, moved to New York in 2022 and joined NYIFC.

On Saturday at 3pm UK time, they will play a friendly match in East London, as NYIFC travel to Britain for a two-game tour, further reinforcing the links between the clubs.

The game will take place at the historic Old Spotted Dog Ground in Forest Gate, East London. It is an appropriate venue for such a game, especially given the ground is now owned by the community club.

It means the fan-owned team owns its ground — two structural aspects of a football club that New York International, and many others, would like to emulate at some point further down the line.

Finding a permanent home in New York City is difficult for any club, though, so NYIFC games are currently played at various municipal or public grounds and parks around the city, which is a good enough arrangement for their current needs.

Clapton CFC is run through a democratic, flat structure split up into committees, meaning every member/owner can have a say in the running of the various aspects of the club.

The committee structure makes it easier for the numerous separate strands of the club to make their own decisions. This includes decisions like organising a game against a team from New York City!

The Clapton CFC international committee prioritises building links with other fan-owned anti-fascist clubs around the world, and NYIFC fits that bill as a club that fights back against the anti-immigrant sentiment that is prevalent in US politics at a federal level under Donald Trump.

At a local level, in Zohran Mamdani, New York City has a democratic socialist mayor who aligns with NYIFC’s outlook and their love of football as a vehicle for making good things happen. Like many of the players, Mamdani has volunteered at the EV Loves NYC soup kitchen in the past, and their paths will have crossed more times than perhaps they both realise.

As well as a meeting between two teams with a similar community-oriented ethos, the match is being billed as an alternative to the commercialism of the World Cup final — an “anti-final.”

“Saturday is also the day before the World Cup Final, a tournament not only compromised by being hosted in Trump’s America, but by Fifa’s position on a whole range of issues,” Clapton CFC say in their preview of the game.

“So, if you want to see what international sporting solidarity can actually mean, come down to the Dog to experience our anti-final.”

Rather than being in New York for the World Cup final that takes place just across the Hudson River from the grounds in which they usually play, NYIFC will make the trip across the Atlantic for this two-game tour, which also includes a game against Bishops Stortford Swifts on Friday night.

NYIFC have steadily grown since their founding in 2019, earning promotion through their local league system to the American Premier Soccer League in 2025.

Leagues which offer such movement between divisions via promotion are rare in the United States, though where they do exist it is usually at this local, amateur / semi-pro level. Still, the closed league system in the US means the American Professional Soccer League (APSL) is the highest level they can reach via promotion.

NYIFC runs reserve teams that play throughout New York’s Cosmopolitan Soccer League, which is one of several east coast divisions that feed into the APSL.

Soccer at this grassroots level is much more organic and community-led than the franchise system at the top of American sports.

It is built on participation, both in the sport itself and in neighbourhood initiatives. NYIFC are regularly involved in such local work, most notably with the prominent New York City soup kitchen, EV Loves NYC, which prepares and distributes gourmet meals to those suffering food insecurity across the five boroughs.

The club’s involvement with EV Loves NYC includes everything from displaying their name and logo on their team wear to volunteering in the kitchen and preparing meals.

The team has regularly raised funds for the local mutual aid organisation via sponsored bike rides or runs.

One such fundraising event will coincide with Saturday’s game against Clapton CFC — an annual 5k run in New York City organised in memory of one of NYIFC’s players, Davide Giri, who was fatally stabbed on his way home from training one night in December 2021.

This will be the fifth annual 5k for Davide, which has regularly raised funds for EV Loves NYC, and will this year contribute to Amici di Davide (Friends of Davide), an organisation that remembers Davide through fundraising, educational initiatives and activities related to the scientific research he carried out as an academic.

This year’s 5k coincides with the game against Clapton CFC, beginning at 9am New York Time with the game kicking off at 10am. Immediately after the run, participants will be able to watch a live stream of the match via YouTube at the club’s regular base for such activities, the Rivercrest bar in Astoria, Queens.

Though the biggest game of the weekend is Spain against Argentina in the World Cup final, those looking for alternatives to Fifa’s marriage with US commercialism will find it at the Old Spotted Dog Ground in east London on Saturday, where a landmark international match of a different kind will take place.