"F*ck Off LAFC": How the MLS club sparked a battle for Swiss football's most storied club

When Grasshopper Club Zürich hosted FC Luzern at the Letzigrund stadium on Saturday, the ultras who typically drive the atmosphere were conspicuously absent from their seats. In their place hung two banners. The first read, with weary resignation: "We just don't feel like it right now." The second, with six-foot white letters on a black sheet, was considerably less restrained: "Fuck Off LAFC!"

After half an hour of empty stands, the GC supporters eventually returned to their section, thick smoke enveloping the sector and firecrackers going off, before resuming chants directed at the current club leadership. It was a dramatic and emotional protest from supporters who feel their beloved institution is being mismanaged into oblivion by its American owners.

To understand why the anger cuts so deep, you need to appreciate just how significant Grasshopper Club Zürich is to Swiss football. With 27 league titles, the Grasshopper hold the record for the most titles in Switzerland, along with 19 Swiss Cup triumphs. Founded in 1886, this is a club whose history stretches back more than a century, and for much of that time they were the unquestioned kings of Swiss football.

But their dominance has long since faded. Their last league title came in 2003, and the club has recorded more seasons in the Swiss second tier than title triumphs in the 21st century. The rot set in structurally in 2007, when their Hardturm ground was closed for a rebuild that never materialized, leaving the club forced to share the modest Letzigrund track and field stadium with their fierce city rivals FC Zürich. By 2019, the club was relegated to the second division for the first time in 68 years.

After years of mismanagement under Chinese ownership, LAFC took over the club in January 2024 by buying a majority stake from its Chinese owner Jenny Wang. LAFC acquired over 90% of the shares, with LAFC's COO and CFO Stacy Johns appointed as interim president.

The MLS club framed the acquisition in lofty terms. LAFC co-president Larry Freedman declared the club was "honored to work together on this long-term partnership with the GC Zürich community," adding that talent development would be "a strategic cornerstone" of the deal. For beleaguered GC fans, it felt like a lifeline. Those hopes have not been fulfilled.

Following the takeover, the club's results declined sharply. Of the first 13 games in 2024, only two wins were achieved, and the head coach was dismissed in April 2024 after nearly two months without a win. That managerial change was just the beginning of an era of instability.

In a statement from the club's ultras published this week, the supporters wrote: "Since the ownership change to LAFC in January 2024, half a dozen coaches, several sporting directors, and various staff members at the front office have been replaced. The promises made at the time of the takeover have never even come close to being kept."

The on-pitch results have been dire. GC narrowly avoided automatic relegation in 2024 on goal difference alone, and were again condemned to a relegation playoff 12 months later, which they escaped by the skin of their teeth. Now, with just four games of the current campaign remaining, Grasshopper are facing the alarming prospect of relegation for a third consecutive season.

The timing of the protest adds an uncomfortable layer of irony. While GC flounders, LAFC have enjoyed an encouraging start to 2026, opening the MLS campaign with a thumping victory over Lionel Messi's defending champions Inter Miami, and reaching the semifinals of the Concacaf Champions Cup. The contrast between a thriving parent club in Los Angeles and a sinking ship in Zürich has only deepened the frustration.

Swiss football pundit Rolf Fringer was unsympathetic to the protesting supporters, arguing that fans should "be grateful that anyone in the world still pays money for GC to still exist." That perspective is unlikely to resonate with a fanbase that watched their club win 27 league titles and compete regularly in European football, and who were promised renewal rather than further decline.

The story of Grasshopper Club Zürich is, in many ways, a cautionary tale about the modern football economy: a giant of a previous era, stripped of its stadium, starved of investment for decades, and passed between foreign owners who arrive with grand promises and leave chaos in their wake.

LAFC's fault in the eyes of the fans lies in a culture of constant change, a transactional approach to management that has produced nothing but upheaval. Whether LAFC can steady the ship in the four remaining games and salvage GC's Super League status remains to be seen.

But the relationship between the American owners and the Zürich faithful has broken down almost entirely. The banner that hung in the Letzigrund was blunt, angry, and unmistakable. For a club with 140 years of history, it was a cry of desperation from supporters who fear they are watching an institution die.