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You can play in this soccer league In Britain or the US only if you are fat enough

Joseph Alvarado Delgado, a goalie for Fatty Liverpool Football Club, center, makes a save against K-FC Dallas during a Man v Fat soccer league game at TOCA Soccer Center in Keller, Texas, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. Man v Fat, a soccer league founded in Britain a decade ago, is expanding in the United States, bringing with it a self-deprecating approach to shedding pounds. (Desiree Rios/The New York Times)

Mr Joseph Alvarado Delgado (centre), a goalie for Fatty Liverpool Football Club, makes a save against K-FC Dallas during a Man v Fat soccer league game in Keller, Texas, on Jan 7.

PHOTO: DESIREE RIOS/NYTIMES

Thomas Fuller

DALLAS, Texas – When two men showed up a few months ago at the adult soccer league in suburban Dallas, Mr Anthony Williams took their measurements – height, weight and waist circumference – and came back with disappointing news.

“I told them, ‘Sorry, you’re not fat enough’,” Mr Williams, one of the league’s coaches, recounts recently, as he watches two of the league’s teams – Fat Man United and Totten-Ham and Cheese – battle in an indoor arena an hour’s drive from downtown.

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