Friends with players, joyful in the stands and sharing the fandom with his family, the Prince of Wales is the ultimate England soccer supporter.

Prince William celebrating a goal by England against Switzerland in Germany, July 6, 2026.Credit : Jean Catuffe/Getty

“Since being a dad, football has become way more important to me than it ever used to. I need to go and be amongst other guys and kind of let off a bit of steam, shout a bit,” Prince William once said.

“Not abuse the referee, because I’m the president of the [Football Association], and I can’t do that. But in my head, I am. It’s become a lot more relevant to me, and I need it.”

If there was a line or two that summed up both William’s full-blown soccer fandom coupled with the outwardly respectful behavior required of a man who will be King, the above — from an appearance on a soccer podcast — might be it.

The Prince of Wales, 43, is a football supporter who fights the urge to shout at the referee – but knows he can’t and shouldn’t, especially in front of his son Prince George, who regularly joins him at games. As he “lets off steam,” sharing the camaraderie of hanging with like-minded people at a sports event, he is like those other fans, exorcising some of the demons from his (admittedly extraordinary) working week.

Put simply, soccer (or football to most of the world) is Prince William’s chief sporting passion.

Prince William and Prince George watching Aston Villa in Paris,France in April 2025.Pierre Suu/Getty

When the World Cup kicks off with the first game, with Mexico vs. South Africa on June 11, it will start a five-week extravaganza of the globe’s most popular sport, and Prince William will be glued to the TV to watch much of it.

England’s first match is against Croatia on June 17, and there is no confirmation on whether he will be in the crowd for the early games — though he will likely be very tempted if the team gets to the knockout stages. Other royals like Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands are expected to attend a couple of matches, while it’s unknown if the Norwegian royals will follow their team, in light of the health concerns over Crown Princess Mette-Marit.

If Prince William does attend, it will be as president of the governing body of the sport in England, the Football Association. But it is his private trips to see his favorite team, Aston Villa, where the real fan is seen.

Prince William lets loose with close friend Ed van Cutsem at an Aston Villa game against Club Brugge in March 2025.Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty

His is a genuine love for following the game and not part of his modern-day “duty.” When he talks about the sport, you can see that excitement in his eyes and hear it in the crackle in his voice. That even once took two hardened ex-pros and pundits, Rio Ferdinand and Ally McCoist, by surprise before a game that William was attending, with George, in Paris in April 2024.

After confessing his nerves and saying, “I’m wearing all my lucky clothes,” he was asked what he was expecting. Prince William went on to talk tactics in depth and said of the Aston Villa manager, “That’s a man who cares about the little details.” Taken aback by William’s confidence and knowledge, Ferdinand said, “Don’t go for a punditry job, because I could be out of the game.”

Prince William’s soccer journey began at age 11, when he first attended a game. It wasn’t his parents, the future King Charles and Princess Diana, who were not known fans of football, but a group of friends (led by Ed van Cutsem) who introduced him. That game was Aston Villa against Bolton in 2000. “I sat there amongst all the Villa fans, and I loved it. I thought the atmosphere was great. The camaraderie, the team ethos,” he told Peter Crouch in 2020. “I also, at the time, I desperately didn’t want to support [Manchester United] or Chelsea like everyone else at school. I liked the idea that Villa had a real history.”

Unwittingly, he couldn’t have picked a more suitable team and one that fitted in beautifully with his future royal role. Based in the middle of the country, and middle of the road in terms of recent, unremarkable achievement, and unlikely to polarize or offend millions of Prince William’s future subjects, Aston Villa was the perfect choice for someone who hopes to unify rather than divide. He might be passionate about his team, but in a sport where intense rivalry matters, few people are going to hold his choice against their king.

Prince William with old friend Tom van Straubenzee, left, and Prince George at Aston Villa match in Paris, April 2025.Pierre Suu/Getty

Successful royals are those who have the instinct for the values that ordinary people respect and cherish. Prince William has an intellectual grasp of what the family stands for, while sport, and particularly football, helps him reflect values and interests back to many of his would-be subjects.

Being so closely associated with the game, he is able to meet people face-to-face in talking about a subject so close to many people’s hearts: It is a leveler, as the football cliché might put it. “I go round Africa and places and talk about Aston Villa, and they look at me and say, ‘What?’” he has said. In Cornwall, recently, he joked with well-wishers about having lost his voice celebrating Aston Villa’s win in Istanbul and admitted daughter, Princess Charlotte, 11, “loves Chelsea.”

Prince William celebrating a goal at Aston Villa in May 2026.James Gill – Danehouse/Getty

While he has taken Charlotte to a game (when Kate Middleton was also there as they joined friends to catch Norwich vs. Aston Villa in 2019), it is George who is the family member mostly by his side — most notably in April 2025, in the French capital, where Villa were taking on the mighty Paris Saint Germain (who went on to win the UEFA Champions League).

Then, Prince William talked of creating a new set of memories for his family. “I thought, it’s been 43 years since anything like this has happened in my generation as a Villa fan, and I want George to experience a night out away from home in a big European competition,” he said, referring to the team’s first European quarterfinal in over four decades.

Prince William, Prince George and Princess Kate at an England game at the Euros at Wembley Stadium, London, June 2021.Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty

This year, the team won the UEFA Europa League, a lesser trophy, but the first one in Europe for 44 years, and Prince William was there (capturing some of it on his own phone.) There, he lived every fan’s dream and partied with the players after the final whistle (at least one, Ollie Watkins, who also reps England, has revealed he has William’s number in his phone).

“He was in there having a beer with us. He’s just delighted. He’s such a big supporter,” Villa player Matty Cash said afterwards. “He’s always coming to the training ground, always at Villa Park. And he deserves moments like these, and hopefully he can let his hair down today.”

William, a prince who can banter with the best on a soccer podcast (and share curry and beer at Kensington Palace as he does so), has also used that closeness to players from Villa’s Tyrone Mings and former star Sir David Beckham, to involve them in the initiatives that he is publicly concerned about — from tackling homelessness to supporting mental health and finding ways to beat the climate crisis, via his Earthshot Prize.

SOURCE: https://people.com/prince-william-love-soccer-world-cup-11995533