Premiership Fan Satisfaction Survey

[QPR Report]

The Times/Kaya Burgess

Fulham players top supporter satisfaction list

Thrilled by their team’s unprecedented performance in the Europa League, Fulham fans were more pleased by their players’ performances than any other set of supporters in the Premier League this season.

In a survey for The Times of 5,026 Premiership fans, Fulham supporters gave their team a 92 per cent approval rating when asked to rate “the performance of their club’s players this season”.

Under Roy Hodgson’s guidance, Bobby Zamora, Damien Duff and their team-mates proved a real threat to the big teams this season - especially at Craven Cottage - and made it to the final of the Europa League for the first time in their history, where they were pipped in injury time by Atlético Madrid.

Elsewhere, despite their side’s finish at the bottom of the table, Portsmouth fans still gave their players an 81 per cent approval rating. They also gave manager Avram Grant a 95 per cent approval rating, showing that they place the blame for the club’s dire situation squarely at the door of the club’s directors, who gained just 11 per cent of the fans’ confidence.

Birmingham City’s run of good form, Wolverhampton Wanderers’ survival and Tottenham Hotspur’s qualification for the Champions League all earned their players a favourable rating among fans while, at Anfield, the Liverpool squad was ranked 18th with a 37 per cent rating, just above West Ham United and Hull City players.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article7137201.ece

[QPR Report]

The Times -Kaya Burgess

Manchester United and Liverpool fans have no confidence in directors

If the Premier League table were based on the fans’ confidence in their board of directors, both Manchester United and Liverpool would be at risk of relegation, a football survey for The Times has found.

When we asked more than 5,000 fans - at least 200 from every Premiership club - to rate “the performance of their club’s directors this season”, only Portsmouth fans were more unhappy that the Liverpool faithful, who gave their directors a mere 17 per cent approval rating, just 6 per cent more than Pompey fans gave the board at debt-plagued Portsmouth.

The ongoing uprising at Old Trafford against the Glazer family’s ownership of Manchester United has also seen the fans’ faith dwindle, with an approval rating of just 39 per cent, putting the league runners-up in 17th place, just above relegated Hull City.

Relations between the board and the fans at Liverpool hit a low in January, when a supporter alleged that Tom Hicks Jr had called him a “f**k face” and told him to “go to hell” after he enquired about the club’s rocky finances.

His father, Tom Hicks, remains at the helm of the club alongside George Gillett Jr, though the pair are looking to sell and it does not seem that the Anfield crowds will miss them.

A sea of yellow and green scarves is a common sight at Old Trafford these days, as fans wear the colours of the club’s original incarnation as Newton Heath in protest at the Glazer family’s management of the club. Chief executive David Gill announced last week that he thought the battle had been won against the consortium of fans wishing to buy the club, though his predictions may prove premature as the discontent shows no sign of dying down.

Elsewhere in our survey, conducted for The Times by Football Fans Census, the directors at West Ham, Bolton and Wigan were also firmly rooted in the bottom half of the table of fan confidence, while the boards at Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea were all ranked mid-table with approval ratings of 73, 72 and 68 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, not a single Portsmouth fan surveyed gave their directors more than a three out of ten rating.

The fans most satisfied with their directors' performance were mid-table teams, as Sunderland, Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers gave their boards a rating of 89, 88 and 86 per cent respectively.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7137195.ece

[QPR Report]

The Times/Kaya Burgess

Fans of big teams satisfied with referees

Which came first, the bad refereeing decision or the egg?

A survey for The Times shows that the fans of the big teams tend to be much more satisfied with the way their matches were refereed than fans of clubs at the wrong end of the table.

What remains unclear, however, is whether a club’s strong league position predisposes the fans to feel more affectionate towards the officials, or whether the referees do show an unconscious bias towards the big teams. Or, of course, perhaps the randomness of human error simply favours some clubs more than others, helping them up the table.

Philosophical and psychological questions aside, the top five most satisfied groups of supporters belonged to Europa League finalists Fulham and top-four finishers Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United, with Manchester City and Liverpool fans also rating referees more generously.

In the survey of 5,026 fans - at least 200 from every Premiership club - supporters were asked to rate “the performance of referees in matches involving your club this season”. Burnley, Stoke and Wigan fans were least satisfied, giving referees in their matches less than a 40 per cent approval rating.

Stoke City manager Tony Pulis was among the most vocal critics of alleged refereeing bias this season, and said last month: “There is definitely a bigger split of decisions that go for the top clubs. Whichever way you cook it, I think that happens.”

He told the News of the World: “It's not just Stoke saying it, you go to any team lower than mid-table and they will show you clips of things that have happened against the top boys that wouldn't have happened against us.”

Aston Villa fans also clearly felt hard-done-by after a flood of crucial decisions went against them at Wembley in the Carling Cup final against Manchester United and the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea, and they rated the refereeing in their matches this season with just a 44 per cent approval rating.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s trademark outbursts against referees were characterised this season by a tirade against Alan Wiley’s performance and fitness in Manchester United’s 2-2 draw with Sunderland last November. He was fined and banned from the touchline for saying: “The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. He was not fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher’s dogs. We have some who are fit. He [Alan Wiley] wasn't fit.”

However, Manchester United fans did not seem to share their boss’s cynicism, and gave referees a 55 per cent approval rating, just four per cent less than the highest rating, from Fulham fans.

However, proving that there is not a lot of love to be lost between football fans and the men in black, the average satisfaction rating from fans in the Premiership for referees was only 52 per cent

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7137194.ece

[QPR Report]

May 26, 2010

Fans back introduction of salary cap

Premier League players should have their salaries capped and ticket-price increases should be tied to inflation, football fans have told The Times, taking the game’s finances to task.

While almost a quarter of the 5,026 fans surveyed were opposed to the idea of a salary cap for Premier League footballers, a 60 per cent majority professed themselves in favour, with 16 per cent undecided.

The introduction of wealthy foreign owners into the Premier League has led some fans to regard the competition as a billionaire’s playground, where players like Gareth Barry and Ashley Cole were accused by many fans of being lured by big pay-cheques rather than remaining loyal to their clubs.

News of players attracted to play in the Premiership by astronomical wages of more than £100,000 a week have never been well received among the fans, who have to fork out increasingly exorbitant sums of money to attend games and afford season tickets.

When Football Fans Census asked fans - at least 200 from every Premier League club - whether they would be support clubs “being forced to cap ticket-price increases to the rate of inflation”, almost three-quarters of respondents said they would be in favour, with only 17 per cent against and 11 per cent undecided.

The average price of a season ticket has often risen by as much as 7 per cent between one season and the next, and now costs around £600 per year on average. However, last summer, most clubs froze or reduced their prices, with the notable exception of then champions Manchester United.

The best-priced season ticket around last season was £199 for the cheapest seats at Blackburn Rovers’s Ewood Park, while Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham were all charging over £1,000 for a season in their most expensive seats.

Season tickets have increased by up to 50 per cent in price over the last five years, far higher than the rate of inflation.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7137179.ece


The Times/Kaya Burgess
Fans trust the FA to protect the integrity of football

Despite its boardroom controversies, the FA remains the most trusted organisation in football, a survey for The Times has found.

Of 5,026 fans questioned, 41 per cent chose the Football Association as the organisation they trusted most to “protect the integrity of football”, which will come as reassuring news to the FA after losing both their chief executive and chairman in the space of two months.

More than twice as many fans chose the FA as their most trusted organisation compared to the Football League, trusted by 19 per cent of fans.

In the wake of Ian Watmore’s resignation as chief executive in March and Lord Triesman stepping down as chairman this month following his comments about alleged corruption at the World Cup, the FA may need all the moral support it can get.

Our survey, conducted for The Times by Football Fans Census, asked more than 5,000 fans - at least 200 from each Premiership club - to choose the organisation they trusted most to protect the integrity of football from a list of six bodies.

In third place, behind the FA and the Football League, was the Premier League, trusted by 17 per cent of fans, while only 8 per cent of fans chose European chiefs at Uefa or the world governing body at Fifa as the group they trusted most.

Coming last, with just 7 per cent of the vote, was the Government.

The FA declined to comment on the survey’s findings.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article7137204.ece


The Times/Kaya Burgess

Fans prefer watching Sky and the BBC

Sky and the BBC are by far the most loved channels for watching football, a survey for The Times has found, with broadcasters ITV floundering far behind.

Only 2 per cent of football fans surveyed expressed a preference for watching football on ITV, compared to 51 per cent for Sky and 40 per cent for the BBC.

Despite ITV’s regular coverage of the Champions League, FA Cup and occasional England matches, the channel polled only 1 per cent higher in our survey than channel Five, who only have the rights to a limited number of European club matches.

In our survey, conducted for The Times by Football Fans Census, we asked 5,026 fans to choose “which TV channel do you prefer for watching football”. In third place behind Sky and the BBC was ESPN, who earned 6 per cent of the vote after replacing Setanta as the secondary broadcaster of live Premier League matches.

Sky continue to dominate the coverage of live football in Britain, while the BBC have the rights to show the highlights of the Premier and Football Leagues, after briefly losing them to ITV from 2001 to 2004.

One small solace for ITV was their recent poaching of the BBC’s Match Of The Day 2 presenter Adrian Chiles to present their World Cup coverage this summer, which will be launched to the press this week.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article7137197.ece

[QPR Report]

The actual questions asked in The Times Survey -

Football Fan Census - Welcome to The Times Football Survey 2010.
Have your say on how your club is run and the big issues affecting the game.
Complete the 10-question survey, it only takes a couple of minutes.
Many thanks for your support.
The FFC Team

www.footballfanscensus.com/research/go/s/62/t/2