{"id":788228,"date":"2026-05-11T07:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788228\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T07:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:01:08","slug":"zohran-mamdani-rubs-elbows-with-spike-lee-to-cheer-on-english-soccer-team-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788228\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani rubs elbows with Spike Lee to cheer on English soccer team in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mayor Zohran Mamdani was pictured watching soccer at a Brooklyn bar on Sunday alongside iconic film director Spike Lee.<\/p>\n<p>The longtime Arsenal fan was spotted cheering on the Premier League soccer team as they beat their London rivals West Ham to move a step closer to clinching their first title in two decades.<\/p>\n<p>Wearing a black jacket over a black-and-red soccer jersey, Mamdani was photographed next to fellow Gunners fan Spike Lee at Fancy Free, a bar in Brooklyn\u2019s trendy Fort Greene neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.75;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39337645\" width=\"443\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/mamdani-spike-lee-fancy-free-127412888.jpg\" alt=\"Spike Lee and Mamdani at Fancy Free in Brooklyn watching an Arsenal soccer game.\" class=\"wp-image-39337645\"  \/>Zohran Mamdani and Spike Lee watched Arsenal at a Brooklyn bar. James Franey  for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Lee, who was seen supporting the Knicks in their Game 3 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday, was wearing an Arsenal jersey and a Yankees hat.<\/p>\n<p>The pair were both seen smiling as fellow punters took pictures of them.<\/p>\n<p>Cellphone footage shows other soccer fans cheering Mamdani as he walked up to Lee and embraced him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, Zohran Mamdani!\u201d some of the bar-goers sang to the tune of the White Stripes\u2019 hit \u201cSeven Nation Army,\u201d aping the same chant that supporters of British leftist Jeremy Corbyn sang during his disastrous time as leader of the Labour Party.<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani and Lee have been spotted watching Arsenal games at the same bar before in Fort Greene, close to Lee\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.75;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39337642\" width=\"443\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/mamdani-spike-lee-fancy-free-127412989.jpg\" alt=\"Mamdani and Spike Lee holding an Arsenal flag with fans at Fancy Free.\" class=\"wp-image-39337642\"  \/>The pair were spotted at Fancy Free, a bar in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. James Franey  for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>In September, before his election victory, Mamdani shared pictures of himself and Lee watching the game and posing with supporters in front of a mural celebrating Lee\u2019s iconic movie, \u201cDo the Right Thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s game was a bad-tempered affair, but ended in a victory for Arsenal as they moved closer to the Premier League title.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners are now four points clear of second-place Manchester City as they look to win their first title since 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani has shown his support for the British soccer giants in the past, including fanboying when he received a congratulations video from former Arsenal star Ian Wright.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI came up as a fan in the early 2000s, and it was my uncle who introduced me to the team,\u201d Mamdani said in an interview last year\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/article\/zohran-mamdani-podcasts-music.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">with Vulture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was born in Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa, and my dad\u2019s family is from East Africa, and Arsenal was one of the first teams to have a number of African players: Lauren, Kolo Toure, Nwankwo Kanu, Emmanuel Eboue, Alex Song,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani was pictured watching soccer at a Brooklyn bar on Sunday alongside iconic film director Spike&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,9128,1121,178962,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,220,21074,376,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,18756,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-788228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arsenal-fc","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-fort-greene","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-premier-league","20":"tag-spike-lee","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-us-news","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-west-ham-united","30":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116554661098509791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}