04.11.2009
Ukrainian football fans: who are they and what do they think about the national team and leading clubs?
- About one third of Ukraine’s adult population identify themselves as football supporters: 5% consider themselves fans, 10% active supporters, and another 18% non-active supporters. Football has a clear unifying potential: the highest share of supporters is found in Donbas, the Centre, and the West of the country.
- Urban residents are more likely to identify as football supporters (35%) than rural residents (27%). The highest level of involvement is among young people aged 18–29 (41%), while the lowest is among those aged 60+ (25%). The gender gap is substantial: 54% of men and only 15% of women say they are football supporters.
- Football is also linked to family status and lifestyle. The highest share of supporters is among unmarried people (46%) and those living together without formal marriage (39%). Among married respondents the figure is 33%, among the divorced 23%, and among widowed respondents 18%. The more children there are in a household, the fewer football supporters it tends to have. The same pattern applies to social factors: higher education and better material well-being are associated with higher interest in football.
- Politically, football supporters are more likely than others to support Viktor Yanukovych, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Volodymyr Lytvyn, Oleh Tyahnybok and Anatolii Hrytsenko, and less likely to support Arsenii Yatseniuk, Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Symonenko.
- Overall assessments of Ukrainian football in 2009 were positive. Sixty-four percent of supporters rated the performance of the national team positively, and 59% approved of the work of head coach Oleksii Mykhailychenko. The most positive evaluations came from respondents in the East and West, and the most negative from Donbas. A majority of respondents (57%) believed the national team should be coached by a Ukrainian specialist; 21% preferred a European coach and only 3% a Russian one. Those who were dissatisfied with Mykhailychenko were more likely to favor a foreign coach.
- Eighty-two percent of respondents had a positive attitude toward Andriy Shevchenko’s return to Dynamo Kyiv. Support was highest in the South, North, West and Centre, and lowest in the East and Donbas.
- Sixty-two percent believed Ukrainian clubs could repeat their previous season’s successes in international competitions. At the beginning of October, supporters rated Shakhtar Donetsk’s chances of advancing from its group higher than those of Dynamo Kyiv. It should be noted that at the time of the survey (3–12 October), respondents did not yet know that Shakhtar would defeat Toulouse and secure a place in the playoffs, or that Dynamo would draw with Inter in the Champions League.
- At that time, 51% believed Dynamo Kyiv would reach the next round of the Champions League (by finishing first or second in its group), while nearly 70% believed Shakhtar Donetsk would advance to the next round of the Europa League. Shakhtar’s chances were rated highest in the East, Donbas, Centre and South; Dynamo’s chances in the East, Centre and North. Supporters in Donbas were significantly more confident in Shakhtar’s success in particular than in the overall success of Ukrainian football.
Methodology
- Target population: residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older
- Sample size: 2,000 respondents
- Method: face-to-face standardized interviews
- Margin of error: up to 3% for values near 50%, 2.6% for values near 30%, and 1.8% for values near 10%
- Fieldwork: 3–12 October 2009
- Regional grouping:
- West: Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi
- Centre: Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy
- North: Kyiv city, Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv
- South: Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol
- East: Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv
- Donbas: Donetsk, Luhansk
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