Overview of Sample

As stated earlier in the thesis, the focus of this study is the Premier League. Therefore, at any one time there are only twenty clubs which compete in the division. The research draws on responses from the clubs which were present in the division during the 2011/2012 season.

These clubs playing in the Premier League for the 2011/2012 season are shown in Table 5.3:

Table 5.3 Overview of Premier League clubs in 2011/2012

Club Type of Ownership

Arsenal PLC (Major foreign shareholders)

Aston Villa Foreign

Tottenham Hotspur PLC (Major domestic shareholder)

West Bromwich Albion Domestic

Wigan Athletic Domestic

Wolverhampton Wanderers Domestic

In 2011/2012, ten clubs were either fully or partly owned by a foreign investor, and the

remaining ten clubs were under the control of domestic investors. This split was fortunate as an equal number of requests could be sent out to domestic and foreign owned clubs. Alongside the Premier League clubs, contact was also made with supporter’s trusts. The timeline for the research process is shown in Table 5.4:

Table 5.4: Research Timeline

April 2011 Pilot Interview at Wolves

June-September 2011 Interviews with Supporters Direct and Supporters Trusts. Unsuccessful attempt made to contact

politicians and regulators.

September 2011 Questionnaires sent out to nineteen remaining PL clubs

October 2011 Interview arranged at West Brom. Completed questionnaires received from Wigan, Blackburn, and

Norwich. Negative Responses received from Sunderland and Arsenal

November 2011 Questionnaires resent to clubs who did not return first questionnaire.

November 2011 Interview arranged at Stoke. Completed questionnaire returned from Chelsea. Negative

Response from Fulham.

The first stage of the research involved the arranging of an interview with a senior manager at Wolverhampton Wanderers [then a Premier League team]. This interview was set-up via a mutual contact, and acted as a pilot study for both the questionnaire and later interviews. After this interview was completed, it was hoped further respondents would be recommended and using snowball sampling the number of respondents would grow. However, the potential respondents recommended were either unable to contribute or not suitable as they were involved in the operation of Football League clubs.

Following the pilot interview, both the questionnaires (domestic and foreign) were revised in late summer 2011. One version was sent to the group of foreign owned clubs (Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United,

sent to nine remaining clubs (Bolton Wanderers, Everton, Newcastle United, Norwich City, Stoke City, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, and Wigan Athletic). All

questionnaires were addressed to a member of the senior management team at each of the clubs whose details were obtained through club websites.

Responses were returned from one foreign owned club (Blackburn) and two domestically owned clubs (Norwich and Wigan). A positive response was also returned from West Bromwich Albion, although this was not with the named person on the covering letter. This led to an interview which was conducted with a member of the clubs senior management team. Negative responses were received from Sunderland and Arsenal. For Sunderland, the negative response contained a letter explaining that the club receives many requests from students asking for questionnaires to be returned and due to this high volume of requests the club does not return them. The

response also suggested that details about the club and its ownership were available from the official website. The response from Arsenal stated that the club did not wish to contribute to the study due to the sensitivity of the issues. Like Sunderland, the response contained a link to the club website and also contained a link to a video where the club’s CEO (Ivan Gazidis) was discussing the club’s annual accounts for 2010. In total six clubs’ responded to the first batch of questionnaires sent out.

With thirteen clubs having not responded to the questionnaire a reminder questionnaire was sent in November 2011. These reminder questionnaires generated a return from one foreign owned club (Chelsea) as well as an interview with a senior manager from Stoke City. A negative response was also received from Fulham who stated that they did not have time to complete the questionnaire.

Therefore, in total four clubs returned a completed questionnaire, with a split equally between two foreign owned clubs and two domestically owned clubs. The questionnaires from Blackburn and Wigan were returned by the person who it was addressed to, while the response from Chelsea was passed onto another member of the senior management team. The returned questionnaire from Norwich did not specify who had filled in the questionnaire. With two interviews also set-up, the response rate was 31.6% with this increasing to 35% when Wolves were included in the sample. In King (1997) interview data was generated from five

chairman/directors plus two other senior managers at Manchester United. With seven clubs participating in this study alongside three members of the supporter movement this gives a comparable sample. The full breakdown of the club responses is shown in Table 5.5

Table 5.5: Questionnaire Responses

Response Club Total

Interview (Domestic) Wolves, West Brom, Stoke 3

Questionnaire (Domestic) Wigan, Norwich 2

Questionnaire (Foreign) Blackburn, Chelsea 2

Negative Response Arsenal, Sunderland, Fulham 3 No Response Aston Villa, Bolton, Everton,

Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle, QPR, Swansea,

Tottenham

10

In addition to the responses from the Premier League clubs, the thesis also gained access to members of the supporter movement. The sample is summarised in Table 5.6:

Table 5.6 Detail of Responses Received

Response (Clubs) Interviews with

Supporter Trusts No Response (Trusts)

Blackburn Stoke Arsenal Supporters Direct Arsenal

Chelsea West Brom Aston Villa Fulham

Norwich Wolves Bolton Manchester

United

Four questionnaires were returned from Premier League clubs, with two from foreign owned clubs (Blackburn and Chelsea) and two from domestically owned clubs (Norwich and Wigan).

In addition to these questionnaires, a total of six interviews were conducted. Three of these interviews were with domestically owned Premier League clubs (Stoke, West Brom and Wolves), with the remaining three interviews taking place with members of the supporter movement.

Of these interviews, one took place with a senior member of Supporters Direct, and the other two were with senior members of supporter’s trusts. These trusts were for clubs which were both foreign owned (Fulham and Manchester United).