Supporters Direct Scotland has launched its Scottish Football Supporters Survey for 2018, encouraging Scottish football supporters to help shape the future of the game in Scotland.
Officially recognised as the lead supporters’ group in Scotland by the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) and the Scottish Football Association (Scottish FA), Supporters Direct Scotland has established a formal means to engage with the game’s key decision makers and represent fans’ views.
Outcomes from 2017 were formally presented to the Scottish FA’s Professional Game Board and the Scottish FA Congress in December 2017, the latter of which includes representatives from all areas of football in Scotland.
Last year’s survey received almost 14,000 responses, and helped to drive change, focussing our attention on the three big themes of “Value For Money”, “Fan Engagement” and “The Supporter Experience”. These priorities are shared by supporters, clubs, and the Scottish FA and SPFL, with progress already seen in a number of areas. Scotland Supporters Club membership packages have been improved to reward loyalty and tailor the offer to members’ needs, and many SPFL clubs have changed the prices of tickets to encourage greater levels of young fans to attend games.
Supporter Liaison Officers are now in place at most clubs in our top two divisions, and at several clubs in League One and League Two, whilst SPFL clubs have seen increased attendances, demonstrating the passion that supporters have for our game.
In addition, following the response to a question on The Offensive Behaviour at Football Act in last year’s survey, SD Scotland conducted a more focused survey on the topic of the legislation and publicly shared its findings. MSPs voted to repeal the Act in March 2018.
The survey will be published annually over the next three years to allow to measure results and improvements, covering value for money, fan experience and supporter engagement.
This year’s findings will be reviewed by Supporters’ Direct Scotland, SPFL, the Scottish FA and an insight group consisting of key media and communications staff from various SPFL clubs.
The survey will run for two weeks closing on Sunday 16 September.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
