FA campaign looks to recruit coaches and referees
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The Football Association (FA) is to launch a campaign with sponsors McDonald’s and Carlsberg to encourage people to become a grassroots coach or referee.
The FA hopes the outdoor, digital and cinema “football needs you” activity will help to attract 50,000 new level one coaches by 2011 and 8,000 new referees by 2012.
Advertisements feature people that spend some of their spare time coaching or refereeing games.
A cinema ad will also feature cameo appearances by England coach Stuart Pearce and 2010 FA Cup Final referee Chris Foy.
The campaign forms part of the FA’s “national game strategy”, a £200m investment in grassroots football.
The coaching initiative is backed by McDonald’s and the referee drive is in association with Carlsberg.
Julian Eccles, the FA’s group director of marketing and communications, says: “This campaign is the first of a series The FA will be running during the season. We will be using a variety of techniques to reach new audiences to encourage them to get into football.
Last week, the FA said its losses narrowed in 2009 to £3m from £12m in 2008.
YouGov Insight:
Sport
- 78% of UK sport followers say that they follow football on the television, while 1 in 4 say that they follow football ’live at the event’.
- 82% of men watch football on TV and a third go to live games. 72% of women watch football on TV but only 15% attend live.
- 35% of UK sport followers say that they watch rugby union on television, whereas only 20% say that they watch rugby league.
- Of those who watch live sport, 52% bought a snack the last time they were at an event while 43% said they bought an alcoholic drink.
- It’s a dead heat between those who prefer to watch sport from the comfort of their living room and those who like to be in the thick of the action at live events (24% each).
Click here for more information on this YouGov market report
