The April-May 2014 survey of supporters' organisations reveals a growing movement, with a 30% increase in membership and significant engagement in events and communications. Despite some relationship dips with football and political stakeholders, there have been notable improvements in meeting frequencies and online interactions. Overall, the data indicates positive trends and plans for biannual surveys to enhance future insights.

1. Supporters Direct Europe
Trust Survey April - May 2014

2. 1 Background
As you know, this year we started surveying supporters’ organisations* on a regular basis. Of course we’re in contact with you all, and know what you’re up to, but the idea is to build up a full picture of the movement and its growth over time. We want to pinpoint the success stories, share them with the rest of the network, and help overcome the challenges we face collectively. As a reminder, the first survey was conducted in April 2014 (focusing on January-March) and the second one in September (looking at April-June). The results of the second survey are presented here. The main areas covered by this survey are membership and community, communications, and relationships with stakeholders. These are not set in stone, and if you think we’re missing something, please do let us know!
* Can be a trust, a national organisation, or a members’ club

3. 2 General facts
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Supporters' organisations
National Umbrella Organisations
Trusts/member clubs
•A total of nine trusts*, one members’ club** and five National umbrella organisations*** from thirteen countries participated in this survey.
15⁄13
* An officially or unofficially established entity that represents individual members and is involved or wants to be involved in the decision making of their club ** A club with a direct membership (not ownership through a trust) *** An officially or unofficially established entity that acts as an umbrella organisation of domestic supporters’ groups

4. 2 General facts
•The oldest supporters’ organisation was set up nearly 21 years ago, in 1993, and the youngest just in 2014. Twelve supporters’ organisations* were set up since 2007 (SD Europe founding year).
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
* Can be a trust, a national organisation, or a members’ club

5. 31/03/2014
30/06/2014
Diff
Organisations
14
15
New organisations
2
Removed organisations
1
Members (total)
2,703
3,487
+29%
Members (can vote)
2,431
3,124
+28,51%
Members (pending)
262
364
+38,93%
Members (<18 or similar)
10
41
+310,00%
Members of NOs
123
126
+2.43%
Volunteers
454
480
+5.7%
Board members
87
100
+15.0%
General Meetings attendance (total)
406
895
+120.44%
Open meetings attendance (total)
854
1,665
+94.96%
General Meetings
7
20
+185.71%
Open meetings
8
20
+150%
General meetings attendance (average)
58
44.75
-22.84%
Open meetings attendance (average)
106.75
83.25
-22.01%
Completed events
7
10
+42,86%

6. 31/03/2014
30/06/2014
Diff
Website visits (total)
94,898
172,969
+82,27%
Website visits (avg)
18,980
28,828
+51,89%
Website visits (domestic)
79%
82%
+3,80%
Website visits (abroad)
21%
18%
-14,29%
Facebook likes (total)
42,092
54,514
+29,51%
Twitter followers (total)
19,633
22,934
+16,81%
Opinion clubs have for trusts
4.11
3.38
-17.76%
Opinion trusts have for clubs
3.67
2.63
-28.34%
Opinion FAs have for SOs
3.50
3.55
+1.43%
Opinion leagues have for SOs
3.63
3.58
-1.38%
Opinion governments have for SOs
3.86
4.00
+3.63%
Opinion various political groups for SOs
3.57
3.89
+8.96%
Opinion local authorities for SOs
3.93
3.00
-23.66%
Opinion police have for SOs
2.83
Join events with football authorities
9
26
+166.67%
Joints events with political authorities
4
34
+750%

7. 2 General facts
• Eleven is the highest number of board members in a supporters’ organisation and four is the minimum. Twelve supporters’ organisations have less than or equal to 7 board members.
5
7
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
average
common

8. 2 General facts
Board members
Chairman/President
14 / 15
Treasurer
14 / 15
General Secretary
13 / 15
Vice Chairman/President
10 / 15
PR / Spokesperson
5 / 15
Ass General Secretary
1 / 15
Legal Advisor
1 / 15
Compliance Officer
1 / 15
Consulting body
1 / 15
The most common structure of the board includes a chairman (legal representative of the board and usually its public face), a treasurer (responsible for the organisation’s accounts) and a general secretary (responsible for the operational and administrative support of the organisation). Most of the boards also have a separate board position for a vice chairman (replaces the chairman in his duties when not available) and for a PR/Spokesperson.
Organisations also create board positions to cover their special needs in dealing with internal and external demands and relationships.

9. 2 General facts
• Diversity! Six trusts are supporting clubs that are playing in the top two tiers. The other four are supporting grassroot clubs of tier 5th and lower.
1
1
1
1
1
2
4
5
6
8
0
2
4
6
8
10
grassroots

10. 2 General facts
• All fifteen supporters’ organisations work with clubs with a men’s football department.
• Four of these are multi-sport organisations (basketball, volleyball, hockey, swimming, water polo, athletics, etc).
• Five are active (or potentially active according to their statutes) in women’s football.

11. 3 Membership
•Registration is free in all but three supporters’ organisations. One requires its members to contribute with 10€ while the other two between 100€ and 200€.
•In five supporters’ organisations membership is free. Eight supporters’ organisations have a membership fee equal to or less than 50€. One supporters’ organisation has a membership fee between 100€ and 150€ and one follows a ‘give what you want’ policy.
5
8
1
1
Annual cost
Free
Up to 50€
50€-100€
100€-150€
Give what you want
•No more than three supporters’ organisations have a special membership for junior members (no right to vote, eg under eighteen years old depending on domestic legislation). Just one supporters’ organisation has special membership categories (unemployed, pensioners, etc).

12. 3 Membership
46,67%
20,00%
33,33%
Membership duration
1/1 to 31/12
365 days
1/7 to 30/6

13. 3 Membership
•At least 480 volunteers (+6%) are assisting the efforts of the supporters’ organisations in the areas of internet (14), general-all around (12), marketing-campaigning (12) legal (11), financial (10), infrastructure (10), lobbying-pr (10), matchday (6), while at least one organisation has set up working groups to assist in each of these sectors.
480
Lobbying PR (10)
General (12)
Fanzine (2)
Matchday assistance (6)
Legal (11)
Financial (10)
Infrastructure (10)
Marketing Campaigning (12)
Internet (14)

14. 3 Membership
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
•The supporters’ organisations offer a variety of benefits to their members in reward to their financial and moral contribution. The most common benefit is access to the newsletter and participation in events of restricted access. Member cards, gift packs and the rest of the benefits are not as popular as one might expect.

15. 3 Membership
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Members
Can Vote
Can't vote
•3,361 members in eight trusts of which 2,956 can vote, 41 are junior members (no voting rights) and 364 have not paid their membership for the current season.
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Can't Vote
Pending
Underaged
5 National organisations
126 domestic members
At least 184,000 supporters (individual members)
•The five national organisations have a total 126 members all of which have full voting rights.

16. 4 Events
•A total of twenty general and twenty open meetings were held with a total attendance of 895 and 1,665 respectively.
• 66% average participation at elections.
Number
Attendance
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
General Meetings
Open Meetings

17. 4 Events
•From the eleven campaigns planned, two were completed and nine are ongoing. In a scale from 1 to 5, the satisfaction of the supporter organisations regarding the planning of the campaign is 3.5, its time management is 3.25, punctuality to deadlines is 3.38, workload distribution is 3.13.
•Ten events were organized by the supporters’ organisations, with a total attendance of 960. Six of the supporters’ organisations were invited to participate in events organized by other, similar European organisations.
 


Workload
Time management
Planning
Deadlines

18. 5 Communications
•At least 11,829 fans interact virtually on the fora of at least three supporters’ organisations.
• 172,969 unique visits on the websites of the five supporters’ organisations that use a statistics engine and can measure them, 77% of which were domestic and 23% were from outside the country.
• 10,174 people receive a newsletter from 7 supporters’ organisation every two months, on average. 60% of the recipients open and read the newsletter.
•Three supporters’ organisations have an official youtube page with a total of 372 subscribers.

19. 5 Communications
• 54,514 likes in total for the thirteen supporters’ organisations with an official facebook page.
279
328
449
659
886
1578
2263
2824
3371
4320
6554
7592
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
Top facebook pages
23.411
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000

20. 5 Communications
• 22,934 total followers on the official twitter account of nine supporters’ organisations.
14.500
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
97
159
506
511
905
932
1266
1327
2729
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000

21. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Clubs
•All ten trusts are recognized by the club they support. On a scale from 1 to 5, the average opinion of the clubs towards the trusts is 3.38, whereas the average opinion of the trusts towards the clubs is 2.63.
Opinion of clubs could be better... 
But we are not happy at all with the clubs!
 



22. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Clubs
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
•Most of the supporters’ organisations have come to an agreement with their clubs and have certain privileges that ensure they can exert influence in the long term on issues related to the identity of their club (seats on the board, veto on club colors- club name-share transfer- stadium location, holders of premium shares etc).

23. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Football Authorities
•Five supporters’ organisations do not have an established relationship with their domestic FA, one has an unofficial relationship and nine have an official relationship.
•Six supporters’ organisations do not have an established relationship with the league, three have an unofficial relations and six have an official relationship.
None
Unofficial
Official
Some
None
Unofficial
Official
Some

24. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Football Authorities
•On a scale from 1 to 5 the average opinion of the FAs towards the supporters’ organisations is 3.55, the average opinion of the leagues towards the supporters’ organisations is 3.58.
0,00%
20,00%
40,00%
60,00%
80,00%
100,00%
1
2
3
4
5
Football Associations
Domestic Leagues
•In at least 26 occasions the supporters’ organisations and the football authorities worked together in joint events.

25. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Politics
•National organisations have not been surveyed for their relationship with the MEPs, as they have changed after the recent elections.
•Nine supporters’ organisations have an established relationship with their government.
•Ten supporters’ organisations have an established relationship with at least one more political parties.
0%
50%
100%
Established Relationship
•Eight supporters’ organisations have an established relationship with the local authorities.
•Six supporters’ organisations have an established relationship with the police.

26. 6 Stakeholders – Supporters and Politics
•National organisations have not been surveyed for their relationship with the MEPs, as they have changed after the recent elections.
•On a scale from 1 to 5, the opinion of the government, other political groups, local authorities and the police towards the supporter organisations is 4.00, 3.89, 3.00 and 2.83 respectively.
0,00%
20,00%
40,00%
60,00%
80,00%
100,00%
1
2
3
4
5
Governments
Political groups
Local Authorities
Police
•Supporters’ organisations and political authorities worked together in 34 occasions.

27. 7 Conclusions
Although two surveys don't provide a huge amount of data, we can safely draw the conclusion that the supporter ownership movement is growing - clearly shown by the rising number of new organisations that join the family and the 30% increase of overall members. While the relationship between supporters and the rest of the football and political stakeholders has suffered a slight dip, there has also been major developments in the dialogue, both internally (over-doubled number of meetings with supporters and of the people who attended) and externally (360% more meetings with stakeholders). In terms of communications, we've also seen major growth - 80% more website visits, 30% more Facebook likes, and 15% more Twitter followers overall. So overall, the picture is very positive. Of course, the surveying process isn't perfect, and we're still looking for the right formula of frequency, questions, and so on. So in the future, we're going to:
•Run surveys every six months, instead of every three
•Do our best to make your previous answers accessible whilst completing each survey (if Surveymonkey let us!)
•Modify some of the questions, based on your suggestions and what we think might help capture better info As mentioned above - if you have any ideas about how we could improve the survey, please do let us know. Hopefully you find the data useful, encouraging, and interesting. Many thanks for your contributions so far! The next survey will be run in January 2015.