To supplement the club questionnaire data, as was explained, interviews were also sought.
Having considered the participants from Premier League clubs the next step was to contact Supporters Direct. Unlike bodies such as the FA and the Premier League, Supporters Direct is more open to researchers than other groups and institutions involved in English football. A benefit of getting access to Supporters Direct was this facilitated access to two supporter trusts.
These interviews were set-up through snowball sampling. The choice of the two trusts (Fulham and Manchester United) was driven by the desired case study choices (explained later in this chapter). A third request was sent to the Arsenal supporters trust but no response was forthcoming from this.
The profiles of the club interview respondents are shown in Table 5.7:
Table 5.7: Club Management Respondents
Participants Respondent A Respondent E Respondent F
Club Wolves West Brom Stoke
Interview Location Molineux The Hawthorns Britannia Stadium
Table 5.8 shows the nature of the successful interview approach for this group.
Table 5.8: Supporters Direct and Supporter Respondents.
Participants Respondent B Respondent C Respondent D
Trust None. Supporters
Direct Manchester United Fulham
Position Senior Team
Member Director Committee Member
Length of Service 3 Involved from 1990’s
beginning with
selection To gain access in the supporter movement
The interviews were conducted on a semi-structured basis. It was decided to choose this
approach as some questions were related to a specific organizational context. A semi-structured approach also allows for the use of follow-up questions, and the order of questions also differed slightly due to the nature of the conversation with the respondent. For example, when dealing
with the supporter trusts, there were questions based on the trust movement, whilst when dealing with the clubs, some questions were asked about the club’s ownership position, but the key themes were the same across all of the interviews. If a fully structured interview method had been chosen then it would not have been possible to explore these issues, as it is inflexible (Maylor & Blackmon, 2005). By using a semi-structured method, variances in answers between trust and clubs could be allowed. A completely unstructured interview would have presented a greater challenge to analyse, so this was rejected as a method.
To help comparability of the results, the questions asked in the interviews were similar to those specified in the questionnaire although some differences did emerge. The question format in the interviews at Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, and Stoke City used the questions from the domestically-owned questionnaire as the basis for the interview questions.
However, the participants were free to choose their own responses, rather than be limited to the responses that were stated in the questionnaire. This allowed for a greater richness to be derived from the interviews which in-turn creates the basis for a better quality of analysis. The questions in both the questionnaires and the interviews were divided into broad themes. Initial questions were based on the background of the club, the determinants of foreign investment in football, effects of foreign investment (both in terms of spillover effects and also the effect on the clubs taken over), and finally questions on football as a business. The interviews began with an introduction and an explanation of the ethical procedures. All of the participants were asked if they had any objection to being tape recorded. None of the participants raised any concerns.
The first questions in the interviews related to background information about the club or the participant involved. An example of the type of question used is shown below:
Follow-on questions in the interviews were asked depending on the responses. For example, at West Bromwich Albion, questions were posed about the club’s decision to delist from the stock exchange, while at Stoke City questions were asked about the club’s previous ownership. This helped to add richness and depth to the earlier responses. For the supporter trusts, the following type of question was asked:
“Just to start with to get an overview, what is the function of the Fulham Supporters Trust? “
Additional follow-on questions to this concentrated on the objectives of the trust and its
relationship with the club. This helped to explore the nature of the supporter trust in more detail and also provided an overview of the relationships supporters have with clubs that have been taken over by foreign investors. For the interview at Supporters Direct, questions were asked about the nature of Supporters Direct and its functions. Following on from this, Respondent B was asked about supporter participation and the nature of fan ownership. During the course of the interview, Respondent B stated some of the negative spillover effects so the discussion focused on some of these effects.
In some of the earlier interviews, questions were asked about football as a business which were supplementary to those on the questionnaire. However, in the later interviews these questions were modified, and both Respondent D and Respondent F made their own comments about football as a business without being prompted. These issues were the explored as they occurred.
The interviews generally lasted between forty-five minutes and one-hour. The shortest interview was thirty minutes. Having addressed the questionnaire and interview design, the next section of this chapter will consider the selection of the case studies.