The City of Angels has a year that some might want to forget. A fiery beginning followed by an unjust summer led those who lived in Los Angeles to a mindset of fear and vulnerability.
Even more so, a majority of the city’s sports teams turned their back on the people when they needed them most. Within Carson, Calif., the Major League Soccer side, the Los Angeles Galaxy, just ended their 2024 campaign with a championship. After such a momentous year, the following a turn for the worse. A 2025 season filled with disappointment and an absence of winning was only further tainted by the club’s choice of silence when ICE and federal took to the streets of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Galaxy has always prided themselves in being trailblazers in the league. They have a strong Latino fanbase and incorporate several Latino traditions into their games and culture. However, the feeling of reassurance and diversity seemed to have vanished in the 2025 season. In June of this year, the Trump administration gave the green light for immigration officials to swarm Los Angeles, beginning a surge of raids throughout the city. Many fought back as agents tried to take undocumented citizens from their families and lives.
Much like the L.A. Dodgers, who also had their share of controversy with ICE, the team has such a strong Latino root and most fans imagined that the Galaxy would release some sort of statement condemning the actions by ICE and reassure their fans. However, it never happened. The club never said something that cemented their position on the matter and this silence left several fans disappointed and afraid.
In the north end of the club’s home stadium, Dignity Health Sports Park, lies the supporter’s section group “Angel City Brigade” or ACB. Members of the group felt disgusted that the club they love and support did not reciprocate those emotions back to them. Randy
Hernandez, a capo of ACB, was one of the many leadership members of ACB that has been very vocal of their thoughts about how the club and organizations handled the issue. He said, “The L.A. Galaxy community has historically been a diverse community rooted in traditions from abroad where soccer is a religion. L.A. Galaxy fans have always been pro-immigrant because we are all immigrants, kids of immigrants, or grandchildren of immigrants.” He and other members of ACB organized boycotts, statements, and massive banners that were to be waved during the games.
Another fan who took issue with the silence is long-time season-ticket member, Matthew Felix. There have been several lows for fans like Felix in the past decade, but he expressed that this was a new low for the club. He explained, “In my opinion, the L.A. Galaxy handled the whole situation really poorly. When the community that supports them the most was under attack, they decided to stay silent…The Galaxy makes a lot of money off of the Hispanic community as they are from Los Angeles. They host things like Mexican Heritage and Central American Heritage Nights. When you’re making money off of a certain group of people, I feel like you kind of have to say something in support of them.”
It also does not help that the team’s crosstown rival, LAFC, put out a statement in support of the immigrant community and expressed that the club stood by them during such difficult times. This sort of support and display of community from a rival further ignited the resentment fans of the Galaxy felt. Some fans have even stopped coming to games altogether as a form of protest against the team and front office. Others kept going to games throughout the season, but it never did feel the same for them
One fan, Sebastian Constantino, described his disappointment in the team he loves most. “I was very disappointed in the L.A. Galaxy front office, in the way they handled everything.
One thing that stood out to me was the banning of a fellow supporter group member for bringing a “banner” when they had no solid evidence that it actually was him, and I feel that it was just a punishment for the article that they worked on with the L.A. Times during this time,” Constantino described.
The Beautiful Game’s Betrayal was first published on California Latino News and was republished with permission.Noah Quezada is a student at CSULB
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