A football club is revolutionizing the idea of club membership—by letting all of its Instagram followers become one for free

As per usual, Real Kakamora made a staggering announcement on their Instagram page this Friday afternoon, when they proclaimed to their 32,000+ followers on Instagram that they would be opening a club membership process to any follower from around the world who wished to apply, free of charge.

This, of course, follows a historic 2024 season in which the club finally broke through the shackles of defeat which had bound them for so long, reversing an infamous winless season in 2023 to achieving a club-best 3rd placed finish a year later, narrowly missing out on their first S-League title to giants Central Coast and the now-in-hiatus Solomon Warriors. During this time, the club’s unique social media presence—initially focusing on posting humorous memes acknowledging their own shortcomings before quickly cultivating a massive online community of supporters intent on tracking the club’s every result and signing at a rate never before seen of an Oceanian club. Many who had never watched an Oceanian match in their life quickly became captivated by the exploits of young stars such as winger Paul Francis and defenders Gordon Iro and Innocent Sinahanua. Such a change is welcomed in a region which has seen domestic football struggle to take off outside of its own borders due to a lack of serious funding and resources in addition to amateurism and relatively poor media coverage.

The club statement boldly declared that those who wished to apply to become apart of Kakamora’s new membership program would gain exclusive access to benefits such as joining a collective seat in the club’s administrative board, gaining early access to purchase the club’s soon-to-be released kits for the 2025 season with American manufacturer JerseyBird, in addition to a completely free season ticket pass to attend all matches played at Lawson Tama Stadium over the course of the next season.

The program has easily become football’s most accessible membership initiative yet—and has the capacity to join European giants Bayern Munich and Benfica in the ranks of the largest base of members in all of professional sport, completely revolutionizing the concept of club football membership in the process. Dedicated fans will be sure to apply, and it’s highly likely that football fans from all over the world who had never heard of Real Kakamora up to this point may apply as well—the novelty of the opportunity to become a member of a club is something that even the most restrained of fans may find hard to turn down—after all, there are practically no downsides to filling out the application.

It remains to be seen whether Kakamora’s new program will assist them in capturing their first S-League title as the 2025 season opener creeps closer by the day, but they’ll be placed firmly along with Central Coast, Laugu United, and a revamped KOSSA as the early favorites to win the championship of the Solomon Islands top flight in an interesting year which has seen throngs of top talent flock to overseas leagues such as Australia’s second division and Fiji’s Extra Premier League, with Kakamora’s very own young standout Francis making the shocking move to Nasinu FC this past week.