The Statista European Football Benchmark reveals: Manchester United is both the most loved and the most hated club in the Premier League. Harry Kane beats Cristiano Ronaldo. Fans have mixed feelings on betting company sponsorships. Being a football fan in England is twice as expensive as being a fan in Germany.

Overview

Some 23 Million people in England are interested in football, 19 million of them are fan of at least one Premier League club and 9 million are hardcore fans who own merchandise and have a high fan engagement towards their club. The average Premier League fan spends as much as £712 per year on football while hardcore fans spend £1,118 on tickets, pay-TV and other football-related things. Compared to Germany this is almost double the amount that Bundesliga fans spend on the beautiful game.

For the European Football Benchmark, Statista asked more than 3,000 fans in England about their interests and attitudes, their fandom and spending as well as about clubs, sponsors, media brands, merchandise, stadium visits and football as a whole.

Most popular and most disliked clubs

Liverpool F.C. (42% of respondents) and Manchester United (40%) are the most popular clubs and have the most fans and supporters. Manchester United is the single most favourite club of most respondents (20%).  As big love sometimes comes with great hate, Man United, together with Chelsea, are the Premier League clubs that most people (36%) hate or don’t like, followed by Manchester City (31%) and Arsenal F.C. (29%).

Club image

The Statista European Football Benchmark provides detailed image profiles for all Premier League clubs. Their own fans and supporters see Manchester United as ambitious (44%), international (30%) and dynamic (31%). Newcastle United on the other hand is perceived by their own fans as regionally rooted (37%) and emotional (19%). Everton F.C. is the club rated as richest in tradition (36%), family-like/welcoming (34%) and genuine (32%).

The image of a club and the image of a sponsor are key to a successful partnership. The European Football Benchmark contains individual image assessments for all Premier League main kit sponsors, showing that, overall, fans don’t perceive betting and loan companies as fitting sponsors for their clubs.

Fans’ opinions

As fans drive the game, the European Football Benchmark surveys their opinions on current football topics. 54% of English football fans say VAR should (continue to) be used in football and 34% of them think that the influence of investors on clubs should be limited.
Harry Kane is the most popular player, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

About the European Football Benchmark

The European Football benchmark on Statista.com offers all results of the survey in a DIY-online-analysis tool. In total, 15,000 European football fans older than 18 years have been surveyed. The European Football benchmarks gets its samples exclusively from Cint, a panel platform, which distinguishes itself through high quality standards and a diligent control of all processes. In addition, all Statista studies are controlled precisely before, during and after the field phase.

The Premier League summary report of the European Football Benchmark can be downloaded for free here (51 pages): https://www.statista.com/page/EuropeanFootballBenchmark_FreeReport

More information about the European Football Benchmark as well as its methodology, quality management and related infographics is available at the following link: https://www.statista.com/customercloud/european-football-benchmark

For questions regarding the European Football Benchmark, please contact Mr. Nicolas Loose, Head of Market Research of Statista Strategic Market Insights: nicolas.loose@statista.com, phone: +49 40 2848 41 - 850.