70% of U.K. Soccer Fans Opposed European Super League Plan Prior to Collapse

To say the owners of England’s six most prominent soccer clubs lacked public support in their bid to form a new European Super League would be a massive understatement, but new polling shows opposition to the plan was considerably less fervent among younger adults in the United Kingdom than their older peers.

In a Morning Consult survey conducted April 19-20 ahead of the plan’s collapse, 70 percent of U.K. adults who identified as soccer fans said they opposed the move by Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur to join six other Spanish and Italian clubs in the creation of a midweek club competition featuring the same core members each year, including 58 percent who said they “strongly” opposed the plan. In addition, 83 percent of “avid” fans of the sport opposed the Super League plan, with 73 percent “strongly” opposed.

The Morning Consult survey of 1,000 U.K. adults carries a margin of error of 3 percentage points, while responses among the 628 British soccer fans sampled have a 4-point margin of error.

While the British public was overwhelmingly against the formation of a European Super League, about 1 in 5 adults between the ages of 18 and 34 came out in favor of the plan, as did 13 percent of those between the ages of 35 and 44. Only 6 percent of respondents between the ages of 45 and 64 and 3 percent of respondents ages 65 and older supported the proposal. 

In addition, more than half of fans over the age of 44 said they “strongly” opposed the idea, compared to just 27 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34, and one-third of those between the ages of 35 and 44.