A decade of Lajee Celtic: The Palestinian club whose fans include Cantona 

London, United Kingdom – Nearly 200 people packed into Edami, a small Lebanese bakery in east London, to celebrate a decade of Lajee Celtic, a grassroots sports club based in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

What began as a football project has grown into an international symbol of solidarity.

In London, the room was filled with Palestinian flags, the aroma of Edami’s freshly baked manousheh, and Lajee Celtic shirts – which have been worn by celebrities, including football icon Eric Cantona and the actor Hannah Einbinder.

Martin, a Lajee Celtic organiser, travelled down from Glasgow for the celebration in September. He first visited Aida Camp, in the occupied West Bank, more than 10 years ago, a trip he described as life-changing.

“I don’t think anyone would really have expected that the project would have been as successful as it’s been,” said Martin, who requested to be identified by his first name. “But Celtic is a unique football club with its foundation, its Irish identity, the diaspora community, its universal support and then the values, which tie so much of that together.”

The relationship between Aida Camp, where Lajee is based, and Celtic supporters developed over years.

Mohammed al-Azzeh, director of the Lajee Centre, which provides services to the youth of the camp, remembers how it all began.

“We’d built up relationships with friends from Scotland and Ireland who had visited Palestine, and then in 2012, I travelled to Glasgow for the first time. We started to have conversations about creating a football academy,” he recalled.

By 2015, the idea was taking shape when a group of footballers from the camp travelled to Belfast to play a game.

Then came the 2016 Champions League draw. Celtic were paired with Israeli side Hapoel Be’er Sheva.

Supporters ignored warnings that displaying Palestinian flags could result in a fine. As the teams emerged, the stadium was transformed into a sea of Palestinian flags, an action led by Celtic ultras, the Green Brigade.

UEFA subsequently fined Celtic.

The Green Brigade responded by launching the Match The Fine For Palestine campaign. Not to pay the fine, but to support Palestinian organisations, including with the formation of a football academy in Aida Camp.

For al-Azzeh, it was a turning point.

“The support and solidarity shown in that game was really a pivotal moment,” he said. “And that’s what ultimately led to Lajee Celtic becoming what it is today.”

The team has brought together young Palestinians from villages around Bethlehem, refugee camps and communities in Hebron and Jerusalem.

“It means a lot, for us as Palestinians, to be in one place and meeting each other,” al-Azzeh said. “It becomes about more than just playing football.”

Lajee Celtic is competing in organised football for the first time. The club had been due to enter the Palestinian league three years ago, but the competition was cancelled when Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza began. Now, despite restrictions on movement between Palestinian cities and the wider disruption to football, the club has entered the Thousand Martyrs Cup, named after the 1,014 athletes killed in Gaza since October 2023.

Bassil Mikdadi, journalist and founder of Football Palestine, said that international reach has given Lajee Celtic a significance beyond the club itself.

“Lajee Celtic is a blueprint for ways in which fans of European clubs can directly support those on the ground in Palestine. It’s connective tissue,” he said.

For Martin, the popular shirts are more than merchandise.

“When people buy these shirts, they do so knowing that the money is funding football, sports and general youth development in Palestine. And then when the same people wear these shirts, whether they’re in Glasgow or London or New York, they’re each making their own individual solidarity action.”

Lajee Celtic created a link between clubs and communities inside Palestine and supporters and campaigners abroad.

“It has this kind of cross-cultural, cross-border solidarity,” he said.

That connection has become increasingly important as Palestinian football has struggled to continue since the genocide in Gaza.

For Mikdadi, the survival of grassroots clubs is essential: They are the groundwork for the national team.

“The success of the Palestinian national team in recent years … the base of that success has always been players provided by clubs in the West Bank and Gaza,” he said.

The club’s ambitions stretch beyond football. It has expanded into sports such as boxing and table tennis, while creating opportunities for young Palestinians across Palestine and the diaspora.

“Fundraising campaigns come and go all the time. But when you create a football club and when you have that sort of tangible idea at the heart of it, then you are creating a journey,” said Martin.

Mohammed al-Azzeh recalled a meaningful memory on a beach in Cape Town, South Africa, where the team played two friendlies in 2025.

Samir al-Amir, a coordinator with Lajee Celtic, had spent more than 19 years in Israeli prisons. When he travelled with the team to South Africa, it was the first time he had been able to leave the walls and checkpoints of the West Bank.

Al-Azzeh remembers watching him on the beach.

“He was acting like a young boy because it was the first time seeing the sea,” he said. “Without Lajee Celtic, I’m not sure Samir would have ever had that opportunity. That illustrates why the project is so important,” he said.