Farage sparked controversy earlier this week with a visit to Ipswich's football grounds to film promotional material.
The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been invited to visit Sunderland AFC’s home ground.
Farage’s visit was due to take place this week, according to Reform UK sources, just days after a similar appearance at Ipswich Town, which was condemned by some supporters’ groups.
The Reform UK leader was in Sunderland this week to launch his party’s local election campaign.
Farage says he hopes to attend a home fixture in the coming weeks.
“I've been talking to one of the directors, and they'd very much like to see me there for a home game,” Farage told ITV News.
“If I can make it, I will.”
Sunderland AFC were approached for comment.
ITV News understands Juan Sartori is the Sunderland AFC director who extended the invitation.
Sartori owns a 34% stake in the club alongside the club’s chairman and majority shareholder, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, who owns 64%.
Farage had hoped to visit the Stadium of Light this week, according to Reform UK sources, but the meeting was never formally arranged.
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Sartori first met Farage in Davos earlier this year while both men attended the World Economic Forum.
He expressed his admiration for the Reform UK leader and suggested he visit Sunderland’s stadium, according to one figure present at the meeting.
Sartori, who was born in Uruguay but grew up in Europe, made his money as the founder of Union Capital Group, one of Uruguay’s biggest investment companies.
He entered politics in 2019 when he finished runner-up in the race to lead Uruguay’s right-wing National Party ahead of the country’s presidential election. The 45-year-old was elected to Uruguay’s Senate in October that year.
Sartori became a minority shareholder in Sunderland AFC in 2018 after being introduced to the club by former owners Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven.
Earlier this week, Farage sparked controversy after visiting another football club, Ipswich Town.
Farage posed for photos in the club’s dressing room and media suite, and recorded a pitchside party political video at Portman Road, the championship club’s stadium.
His appearance sparked a backlash from some Ipswich Town fan groups, who said Ipswich Town “risked alienating large numbers of the fanbase and fomenting division”.
“Clubs should want to talk to me,” Farage told ITV News during his visit to Sunderland.
“The government is about to bring in a regulator and I think the last thing English football needs - given what a massive success the Premier League - is a state appointed regulator.
“It's a conversation I had at Ipswich the other day and I'll have at Sunderland before very long and I want to speak to all the clubs about this.”
Farage denied he was being endorsed by Sunderland AFC. “It's not about support,” he said. “It's about a football club being open to leaders of national political parties.”
"I've been talking to one of the directors and they'd very much like to see me there," said Farage about Sunderland FC.
England’s Independent Football Regulator was established by the government last year. The body - which is independent from government and football authorities - aims to improve financial sustainability in the football pyramid, stop clubs from joining breakaway competitions and toughen up tests to stop rogue owners.
The Premier League and some club executives criticised its introduction and questioned the need for a regulator.
Reform UK have increasingly tried to appeal to football supporters in the UK. Last year, the party launched its own light-blue football strip with ‘Farage 10’ printed on the back and party logo and union flag on the front.
Reform’s equalities spokesperson, Suella Braverman MP, this week wrote to the Football Association to criticise the governing body's diversity policies, which the former Conservative Home Secretary called “utter woke nonsense”.
Reform UK has only eight members of parliament, but has led UK opinion polls for much of the last eighteen months.
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