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Survey On Best Supported Clubs in Europe
Topic Started: Sep 9 2010, 09:55 AM (861 Views)
Yogi
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Survey On Best Supported Clubs in Europe

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SPORT+MARKT surveyed around 9,600 football fans in 16 European markets with an average of 600 respondents per country, and found that Barcelona had the most fans with 50.3 million, followed by Real Madrid with 45.9 million. Manchester United (32.8 million) and Arsenal (22.9 million) make up third and fourth places.

Spanish clubs are supported by an estimated 103.5 million while an estimated 99.2 million people across Europe follow English clubs. English clubs have a larger domestic fan base, but Spanish clubs pull in far more supporters from outside the country

Hartmut Zastrow, Executive Director, SPORT+MARKT said the survey results showed the following:

“Along with Chelsea FC, FC Barcelona is the big winner amongst the top European clubs. Despite still having an unusually high fan potential, the main loser over the past five seasons, with 11 per cent less supporters, is Real Madrid.”

“The fact that Chelsea FC has increased its fan base by over five times, clearly shows what a fast-moving market football is. One can achieve a lot in a short amount of time.”


Makes me think fans are much more fair weather than we thought even in Europe. Chelsea have increased their fan base by 5 times coinciding with their winning ways while I bet 10 years ago Milan then one of Europe's best would have likely been even closer to the top in continent wide popularity.

The complete top 20 according to this survey,

Barcelona CF
Real Madrid
Manchester United
Arsenal London
AC Milan
FC Bayern Munich
Chelsea FC
Liverpool FC
Juventus Turin
Zenit St. Petersburg
FC Spartak Moscow
Inter Milan
Olympique Lyonnais
Olympique Marseille
ZSKA Moscow
Wisla Kraków
Ajax Amsterdam
Galatasaray Istanbul
AS Roma
Werder Bremen
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ursus arctos
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Bandwagon jumping doesn't respect geographic boundaries.

The sample size is very small, though, and it would be interesting to understand what their definition of "fan" is. In the UK, for instance, it is generally considered to be extremely bad form if one claims to "support" more than one club (especially more than one domestic professional club).

The Zenit result is absolutely gobsmacking.
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libero
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I am with ursus about his concerns with this survey and also wonder if fans were given the option of supporting more than one team, as that could certainly skew the results if they were.

Zenit and Wisla Krakow's results both surprised me. I kinda of expected clubs like Borussia Dortmund and Schalke to make the list as they are two of the best attended clubs in Europe. But maybe their support is very regional and not many say Greeks or Swedes are going to say they support either Dortmund or Schalke.
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ursus arctos
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As someone who lived in Germany for several years, I can assure you that both Schalke and Dortmund have more actual fans than Bremen. Schalke are second only to Bayern in terms of nationwide support.

I hadn't noticed Wisla; that's also bizarre.

I'm wondering if they have weighted the survey results on the basis of population. That would explain the three Russian clubs (though not Zenit over Spartak) and perhaps Wisla, but not the absence of Dortmund, Schalke or HSV.
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Merengue
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Here is a wire service story on the same survey noting how Bayern Munich drastically increased their overall support last season,

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=afp-fblger

More evidence of bandwagon jumping after Bayern's extremely successful season last year.

Good question about whether survey results were weighted based on population. That might explain why the Russian and Polish clubs ursus mentioned made this list and other clubs from smaller nations but who are popularly supported there like Benfica (the club with more members than any other), Porto, Rangers, Celtic, Olympiakos and Panathinaikos did not.
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ursus arctos
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I also wondered about the absence of the Portuguese and Scottish clubs and agree that they have to have weighted the results, with the outcome being that countries with a small population that are not dominated by a single team (but rather split among two or three) don't show up in the top 20.

Thinking about this leads me to ask another question of the many Latin American specialists on here.

Do Latin American fans "support" club teams from outside their home countries (but within Latin America)? I know that there are signifcant number of Spanish and Italian supporter clubs throughout Latin America, but are there significant numbers of Boca fans in Colombia or River fans in Ecuador?
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enganche
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ursus arctos,Sep 9 2010
02:17 PM
Thinking about this leads me to ask another question of the many Latin American specialists on here.

Do Latin American fans "support" club teams from outside their home countries (but within Latin America)? I know that there are signifcant number of Spanish and Italian supporter clubs throughout Latin America, but are there significant numbers of Boca fans in Colombia or River fans in Ecuador?

That is a good question ursus and being an Argentine who briefly lived in Colombia it was my experience that support for Argentinian clubs was not very fixed but fans would follow a club from another country who had their own nationals on its roster, in other words Colombians would be fans of Boca when they had Oscar Cordoba, Mauricio Serna and Jorge Bermudez, three Colombians, in their lineup. Now that those three players are no longer with Boca, I imagine there are not as many Colombian fans of Boca. Some support for the club surely exists but not as much as it was when the Colombians were on the team.

What I have found is fans in Central America, maybe because their own clubs are not that strong, have become fans of clubs from both Europe and Latin America, thus in El Salvador, Panama or Honduras you are likely to find fans of Boca, Barcelona or Club America. Extensive TV coverage of those leagues has I think also helped increase their fan base throughout Latin America and not just Central America but it has been my experience Central Americans are more likely to follow clubs from elsewhere in Latin America than fans from other nations in the hemisphere are.
Prefiero morir de pie que vivir arrodillado
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enganche
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We had a discussion a few years ago after another survey was posted, which tried to extrapolate how much support each club gets in its home country. That survey found that Flamengo in Brazil was the club with the largest domestic fan base in the world.

But in wake of that we had a debate which I think may be of interest here and that is what constitutes a fan of a club, here is the link to that discussion,

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Soccer_Futbol_F...p?showtopic=276

I still stand by what I wrote 2 1/2 years ago during that discussion, particularly what makes someone a fan of a particular club,

It is really hard to quantify who is a true supporter as compared to these other levels of fandom we've listed here (sympathizer, casual follower). But to me pitacodogringo would still be a Nottingham Forest fan even if he now lives far away from that club's city. The same way I am still an Independiente fan even though I now live very far from Avellaneda. I grew up a fan of that club, like pitacodogringo with his club I follow it's games via radio, TV when I can, read up about it on the internet when possible and when I do return home I try and go to a match. So yes that would in my book quantify both of us as fans of our respective clubs. I can't speak for pitacodgringo but this is a team with which I have strong connections with. That is a definition of a fan of a club.

Can you say the same about the other examples Martin used here? A Californian supporting Real Madrid, an Indonesian pulling for Manchester United, a Salvadoran for Boca Juniors? I don't know. They probably don't have the ties to those clubs that pitacodogringo and I have with ours but I don't think there necessarily has to be a standard which makes somebody a fan and others just a sympathizer or casual follower. If anything, I'd say if you get upset when your club loses or joyous when it wins then that's probably good enough to make you a real fan no matter where you live!
(emphasis added)
Prefiero morir de pie que vivir arrodillado
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cafetero
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I agree with enganche on his views on support within Latin America for clubs from other parts of the region. There was a time when you could not walk down a street in Colombia without seeing somebody wearing a Boca or River shirt because of the Colombian players each club had. That support is less now but there still is sympathy for them both within Colombia. But they are not those fans "first" team, they still support their local club, Atletico Nacional, Santa Fe, Cali, Medellin, Millonarios, etc., but in addition feel sympathy for Boca or River. I will say in Colombia there really is not much support for any other non Colombian clubs other than Boca and River.

But their support inside Colombia coincides with something discussed here in relation to this survey, how do you quantify foreign support for a club? Does the foreign club have to be your favorite? 2nd favorite? 3rd favorite? etc.

I am glad enganche linked to that discussion we had several years ago, and what I wrote then I think still applies today to this latest survey,

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it is so hard to really differentiate between a casual follower of a team and a true blue supporter. enganche's definition is a good one but that isn't really something which can be determined through a poll.


But what I think does come out in this survey of support for European clubs but which was much less apparent in the previous survey discussed two years ago, which listed Flamengo as the world's best supported club, is how fickle support can be for some clubs. Look how up and down support has been for teams like Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
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ursus arctos
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Muchas gracias, amigos.

Very interesting stuff, particularly the link to the old thread, which references a survey (or series of surveys) that strikes me as significantly more accurate than the Sport+Markt one that started this thread.

I also agree with the comparison between Central America and South America in this respect. In my experience, a key factor in fans "adopting" teams from outside their home country is the strength of their local league. For instance, I adopted Tottenham at a time when the NASL had yet to be invented, and the best team in the New York area was likely someone like the Pan-Cyprian Freedoms.

Another factor that is important here is how competitive the local league is. In Italy or Portugal, for instance, it is very common for fans (and even season ticket holders) of clubs outside the "Big Three" to also be "sympathizers" of one of the big clubs.

Finally, the explosion of the internet and communications technology has made it much easier to follow non-local clubs. I saw one Tottenham match on television in my first decade of support, and that was almost a month after it was played. The New York Times generally printed English and Scottish (only) scores in the Sunday paper in tiny type, but if you wanted match reports or scores from any other league, you either had to go to Hotaling's Out of Town News and buy a paper from the relevant country or go to the New York Public Library.

My support for Barcelona and Fiorentina dates from living in Europe in the early 80s, but has been much easier to keep up in this decade, even though I am now in New York.

And as poster's personal examples on each of the threads indicates, we have become a much more mobile society than the one our parents and grandparents lived in. The three clubs that I've seen most often live are Inter, Eintracht Frankfurt and San Jose Earthquakes, and yet I wouldn't characterize myself as a "supporter" of any of them, as I just happened to be living nearby and never even considered transferring my pre-existing allegiances (though I'm definitely an Inter "sympathizer" and didn't like to see Eintracht lose (which they generally did) and had positive feelings towards the 'Quakes (as long as they weren't playing Vancouver).
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Merengue
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Quote:
 
I also agree with the comparison between Central America and South America in this respect. In my experience, a key factor in fans "adopting" teams from outside their home country is the strength of their local league. For instance, I adopted Tottenham at a time when the NASL had yet to be invented, and the best team in the New York area was likely someone like the Pan-Cyprian Freedoms.


I know some Central Americans who have adapted Spanish and South American clubs for that reason. They may still follow their local club but now that they live away from their home country it is hard to watch them play but they are able to watch Real Madrid, Barcelona, Boca Juniors and Flamengo on TV.

As for the validity of the surveys, I too think the one referenced from several years ago is a more accurate reflection of a club's true support but with modern day satellite broadcasts, there is no doubt the big clubs fan base has increased dramatically in countries beyond their own nation.

What surprised me regarding the Sport + Markt survey is how European fans have seemingly adapted the "super clubs" now too. It is not just a Salvadoran, South African or Indonesian supporting those clubs because they are far superior to their own nation's teams, but now apparently Russians, Czechs, Danes and Greeks are doing the same.
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Martin
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Quote:
 
I also agree with the comparison between Central America and South America in this respect. In my experience, a key factor in fans "adopting" teams from outside their home country is the strength of their local league. For instance, I adopted Tottenham at a time when the NASL had yet to be invented, and the best team in the New York area was likely someone like the Pan-Cyprian Freedoms.


This was also a big reason why the Los Angeles Galaxy always attracted a lot of Central American born fans, or at least they did before the club moved to the Home Depot Center and priced many of them out of the market. Yet at the same time the club struggled to attract Mexican born fans for precisely the reason ursus cited, they were accustomed to watching Mexican league play, a league which was, and is, better than MLS.

As to ursus other question regarding support in Latin America for clubs from other nations, I mostly agree with enganche's and cafetero's comments but I will add that in Ecuador there still is some support for Penarol of Uruguay because Ecuador's greatest ever player, Alberto Spencer played there. The support still exists even though Spencer played for Penarol in the 1960s. But support for Penarol is secondary to support for a local Ecuadoran club.

I think Santos also enjoyed some support throughout Latin America because that was the club some guy named Pele played for. I think support for Santos waned a bit though as the club had many mediocre seasons in the 80s and 90s but it has enjoyed a revival first with the Robinho-Diego led teams in the mid 2000s and now with the Neymar-Ganso team.

As for the Sport + Markt survey, I agree with the others here, it seems very hard to quantify what constitutes a fan although enganche's definition from that old survey's discussion is about as accurate of one as I think you can find. But it still baffles me that so many European fans have now adapted Barcelona. The question left unanswered is whether that support is real or if that is just secondary support for Barcelona?
Club Sportivo Desamparados
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ursus arctos
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A question obviously very close to my culé heart.

My sense is that it is primarily secondary. What is certainly true is that the number of Barca socios increased substantially during the Laporta era, in part because of the success of the club, but also because of a serious effort to expand the club's reach (having almost all football-related content on the website and socio materials translated into English was a big part of that, as is Barca TV and overseas tours). Certain signings have also helped in that campaign (Gudjohnsen and Ibra in the Nordics, Yaya Toure and Keita in Africa. Marquez and Dos Santos in Mexico), as has the Unicef deal (which may have resulted in cash going out rather than coming in, but has been tremendously valuable in terms of the club's image). Finally, the Messi effect cannot be underestimated. Leo just isn't the best player in the world, he's also a tremendously likeable person with a great personal story, and that rare kind of athlete that nearly everyone can relate to physically. He appeals to neutrals in a way that C. Ronaldo never will.

I remain unconvinced that the majority of those "fans" will stick by the club if (and I'm afraid it's more accurately "when") the wheels next come off and we stop winning things for an extended period and/or playing bad football. The early to mid-80s (when both conditions applied) tested my own faith.

A very interesting point about Spencer, Martin. Penarol have always struck me as one of South America's most interesting clubs (at least on a par with the grandes of Brazil and Argentina). In some ways they remind me of a Latin Ajax or Anderlecht, though obviously their own "golden age" pre-dated that of the Benelux clubs. And like those clubs, they have an immediately identifiable strip that is very much their own.
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Martin
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A very interesting point about Spencer, Martin. Penarol have always struck me as one of South America's most interesting clubs (at least on a par with the grandes of Brazil and Argentina). In some ways they remind me of a Latin Ajax or Anderlecht, though obviously their own "golden age" pre-dated that of the Benelux clubs. And like those clubs, they have an immediately identifiable strip that is very much their own.

That is an interesting comment and one thing where Penarol differ from their great rivals Nacional is that Nacional, with white shirts and blue shorts do not have, as the other clubs you mentioeend, a distnctive uniform. But both uruguayan giants have like the Dutch, belgian and Scottish giants in Europe fallen on tough ties as they just cannot compete at the continental level with clubs from bigger and wealthier leagues. Although as we have discussed a bit in the South American club futbol thread, in recent seasons uruguayan clubs are starting to do better in continental competitions even if they have not advanced to any finals.

And much like the big clubs from Scotland and Holland, although massively supported within their own country, those nations small population base always means their biggest teams will not be among the continents best supported clubs.
Club Sportivo Desamparados
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Winslow
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Back to European supporters for a moment: I recall reading somewhere, though I'm unsure exactly how (it might've been about Italy), that many fans of small clubs also tend to have a big club they support--though not as vociferously and loyally as their local club. (Merengue refers to this happening among Central American emigres, but I'm talking about fans living in their homelands and supporting local teams in lower divisions.)

Is this what you all have seen? And does it make any sense in this context that small club supporters might wander among different big clubs, depending on how they're doing at any given time? I know that my interest in certain Euro clubs has waxed and waned depending on how many Americans are on their rosters.
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