Market research published report:
Research report technology in football

Context for research

Contentious decisions have, throughout the years, often caused the ‘technology in football’ debate to rear its head. Some famous examples include Geoff Hurst’s goal to give England a 3-2 lead in extra time in the 1966 World Cup final, and it’s hard to forget Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal against Germany in 2010.

Domestically, Roy Carroll’s ‘over-the-shoulder’ fumble for Manchester United against Tottenham in 2005 and John Eustace’s own-goal-that-never-was for Watford against Reading in 2008 are excellent examples. Even more can be found on a list compiled by Sky Sports entitled ‘Ghost Goals’, and there are numerous websites dedicated to the subject – further demonstrating the current fascination with the topic in the footballing world. More recently, Luis Suarez apparently handled the ball before scoring Liverpool’s winning goal against Mansfield – if technology had been implemented, we may have seen a historic giant-killing.

Whilst this controversy rumbles on in the world of football, other sports have pro-actively adopted technological advances. Tennis, Rugby (League and Union), American Football, Cricket, Baseball and Basketball have worked technology in to their sports in some guise – and admittedly with different levels of success and with different systems of implementation.

Given these facts, we at DJS Research thought the time was right to test the water, and conduct research with football fans to gauge their opinions on introducing technology. This report gives a detailed discussion of those findings and how they may impact the sport in the future within the sports sector.

Our approach

We carried out research via an online survey to allow us cost-effective access to a widerange of football fans. In order to collect a diversity of opinions and reassure respondents, the survey was hosted on DJS Research’s own internal system and was distributed via recognised footballing websites and groups, utilising both their static websites and social media presence, as well as through word of mouth on social media. The survey was around five minutes in length and was generally quantitative in nature. Individuals were given the chance to add any additional comments at the end, and most chose to do so. Some of these verbatim comments are included in this report to add more detail and provide a deeper level of understanding to the quantitative findings.