The future for football supporters : strategic customer perception of organizational change

Abstract: The interest for professional football has increased during the last decades; more people attend football games and buying club merchandise. This has lead to increased turnover for the football clubs. This new development has forced the football clubs to transform in order to take advantage of the opportunities an increased turnover creates. The way Swedish football clubs have changed; is to start joint stock companies besides the non-profit football club. The supporter clubs today have a close relationship with the football clubs they are connected to. The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how the organizational change in the football club affects the close relationship between the supporters and the football club. The problem has been investigated with help of an open questionnaire, which has been sent out to supporter clubs connected to football clubs in the highest division in Sweden. The result of this thesis shows that the organizational change that has taken place in the Swedish football clubs, has not affected the relationship between the supporters and football clubs in a negative way. However, some of the supporters feel that the development has lead to a situation where the supporters have less opportunity to participate in the decision-making process.   To conclude, the supporter clubs felt that a change in organizational form had or would mean that they did not have the same opportunity to be involved in the decision-making process.