Scottish Religion and Football

by Masanori Kawaguchi
(Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan)

Just over two-thirds of the Scottish population has the religion Christianity. About 12% of the population are currently members of the Church of Scotland, which has been Protestant, with 40% claiming affinity with it, while 19% of the population are Roman Catholic.

This affects football. Scotland has two big football clubs. One of them is Rangers F.C., which has Protestant support. The other one is Celtic F.C., which has Roman Catholic support.

These 2 teams have competed to win the Scottish Premier League every season. The other teams have seldom won the league.

I support Celtic F.C. because two Japanese football players belonged to the club such as Shunsuke Nakamura and Koki Mizuno.