Date published: 01.09.08 - not release date

Hattrick.org - 196,000 Footy Fans Surveyed About World Cup

- 196,000+ In Largest Football Fan Survey;
Beckham Will Be the Big Disappointment Of The World Cup -

Largest Football Fan Survey – Global Football Monitor – Reveals The Truth Behind The Flags
Who will win the World Cup? Who will fail? And what does the world really think of the England national team?

Stockholm, June 2 2006 – www.Hattrick.org - the world’s largest football community with more than 850,000 active users in 108 countries today announced the findings of the largest ever survey of football fans worldwide - The Global Football Monitor. With just days to go before the World Cup kicks off over 196,000 footie fans were asked to reveal their thoughts on the winners, losers and heroes of the World Cup.

“With such a huge sample we are able to give a clear picture of what football fans of today feel about the game, about the World Cup and about the participating national teams”, says Hattrick founder Johan Gustafson. “The Global Football Monitor gives an invaluable insight into the hopes, dreams and rivalries that exist today among the largest community of football fans”.

The survey confirms certain things many of us have always suspected, for example that Brazil is the most liked and the favourites to win the World Cup.

Additionally, the Polish top the league in terms of Fair Play with 66% of Polish fans agreeing that fair play is more important than winning.

So what about England?

·20% of fans put David Beckham on top as the player who will be the most disappointing during the tournament (2nd was Spain’s Raul on 10%)

·The English will spend an average of 2-3 hours each day on watching and catching up on the World Cup.

·Only 29% of the English believe that England will win the World Cup; on average they think that their national team will only make it to the semi-finals. 48% of the English think Brazil will win.

·42% of English fans least of all want Germany to win, followed by 11% who don’t want Argentina to win and 10% who wouldn’t want France be victorious. On the other hand 30% of the Argentineans, 14% of the French and 13% of the Germans don’t want England to win.
·21% of the English think France’s Thierry Henry will be the top scorer

·The English will prioritise football during the World Cup, 43% over spending time with their families (26% is the global average), 50% over school/work (35%)

·36% of English fans have re-arranged the holiday around the World Cup finals

·Winning is the most important thing for the English, only 32% (46% is the global average) agree that fair play is more important than winning, only 31% (46%) rate quality of play over winning.

All findings of the Global Football Monitor are available from 1 PM (CET), today Friday June 2nd on: www.globalfootballmonitor.com. On the site media can also find a downloadable version of the complete findings, as well as free-to-use graphics, charts and tables in Jpeg-format.

For further press information, contact:

Andrew Durkin/Sarah Bedwell
MUSTARD PR
Tel: + 44 (0) 1628 502601
Email: andrew@mustardpr.com / sarah@mustardpr.com

About Hattrick

Hattrick.org is a free, web based football manager game. Users get to manage their own virtual football club and compete online against other people on a local, regional and global scale. Hattrick today has more than 850,000 active members, spread all over the world. Users are distributed over 108 national leagues, and the site is translated into 37 languages. The average user is 23 years old, with a solid interest in football, the Internet and community based entertainment.

The user spends at least an hour, every week, on: www.hattrick.org