Questionnaire Results

Interview Questions

These are the questions we have selected to use in our documentary, the people we will interview will vary from proffessional footballers, rugby players, doctors and vox pops. As we have a range of proffessions/backgrounds, we will have to target different types of questions at different people.

Vox pops

Do you think footballers wages are too high?

How much do you think footballers should be paid per week?

What other proffesions are they that you think warrant a higher wage than footballers?

Do you think money in football will continue to rise in the coming years?

Are ticket prices too high and should they be lowered?

What is it about football that you feel generates all this money?

People in football

Is the money in football exessive these days?

Do people outside of football who complain about players wages fail to understand why they are such high wages, if so what is it they don't know?

What other proffesions are they that you think warrant a higher wage than footballers?

What is it about football that you feel generates all this money

Questionnaire Response

We targeted our main demographic in these responses, interviewing young males. We also added some relevant mise en scene with the astro turf sports facility clearly visible in the back ground

Graph

In this graph we see an increase in spending over the last few years from 2003 there has been an average increase of over 400 million pounds, this is because football clubs have now got more money through their owners, also players are costing more than they did in previous years.  The most meteoric rise comes after 2006, this and the rise in general can be linked to a number of reasons such as:

. Increase in player power (meaning they want to leave clubs more often)

.More and more rich owners takings over and pumping cash into new transfers (examples include Man City, Leicester, QPR, Crawley Town, Malaga, PSG)

. The hype surrounding the transfer windows (sky sports news ect) influences clubs to make the most of them

. The rise of TV deals and sponsorship which means the clubs have more money to use on transfers

. The introduction of parachute payments (when a club is relegated they receive money to enable they are financially sound in the lower division) and bonus payments for progress in competitions.


Quote

“@JordanS15CFC: @themichaelowen do you think footballers are overpaid?” No. They are paid the going rate for the contribution they make.

. Here is a direct quote from Michael Owen's (Manchester United and England striker) twitter account showing his view on footballers wages

. He is suggesting that footballers are paid the correct money due to the revenue the whole game recieves and the contribution they make to making that game possible.

Formal Proposal

Topic

Our documentary will be focused upon money in football, covering a variety of aspects including wages, transfer fees, takeovers, TV and merchandise. This is a popular topic and is often up for much debate and so should intrigue a broad demographic of the public, applying to a many different age groups. A lot of people have an opinion on this issue and so we aim to clarify the facts and the figures giving a both sided in depth look at to what is really going on. This in turn will increase awareness and promote the outlining issue of money in football today amongst society.

Type of documentary

It will primarily be a mixed documentary, incorporating a variety of relevant interviews (with players and coaches), voxpops with the general public to gather an opinion, voice over, archive footage and live football match footage that will contribute to mise en scene with the addition of editing and graphics. Due to the extensive research have conducted it will be an investigative documentary.

Style of documentary

 Our style will be very much face paced and hard hitting, due to the nature of the sport. This fits in well with the relevance to our topic and we’ll include editing that enables a consistent flow, linking themes and using editing throughout to create an effect that is both aesthetically pleasing to the viewer and relevant.

Chanel and Scheduling

From our questionnaire results we gathered that the ideal time to show this documentary would be at 9pm, this is a time that suits the majority of TV viewers and we’ll be able to maximise our put to the target audience. We believe a mid week night (say Thursday) would be the best option as a weekend timeslot may impact negatively upon our primary audience (16-25 year olds who are keen on sport) as they may be out and busy. A mid week slot would be available for them and the older generation to so we would be including a wide range. We would air the documentary on Channel 4 as this seems a popular choice for documentaries (e.g. dispatches ect) and it’s image is associated with the right kind of target audience for us.

Target Audience

As I’ve eluded to our target audience will be 16-25 year olds, this is due to the fact this age is the most represented in the playing and interest of football. The discussion and content may perhaps be to complex for younger audiences but certainly older people and people who have long time experience in supporting football (having seen the development of money in it) would be interested.

Target Audience

Our main primary research has been the surveys/questionnaire’s we have conducted in both a word processed and video format. From this research we gathered info on time schedules, content and the right audience targets all of which have proved useful in the planning of the documentary.

Primary Research

In terms of secondary research we found out information regarding the financial income of top players, record breaking statistics and useful facts. Google Scholar proved effective in these findings, as did the website www.FourFourTwo.com

Secondary Research

The narrative structure will be linear, addressing a chronological order when discussing the evolution of wages in football. A voice over (voice of god) will be used to introduce points and state facts.

Outline of Content

Archive footage of players signing for clubs will be used to introduce the theme straight away, followed by titles to signify the beginning of the documentary and topic. The voice over will then commences to introduce the ideas that we will be evaluating throughout.  Then there will be a range of interviews and clips. The interviews will involve both the public (to gather various opinions on strong subjects, e.g. should footballers be paid this much, is the price of … to high?), sportsmen and people involved with sport e.g. professional footballers, coaches, rugby associates (for the contrast from football). We will also get an interview with someone from another profession such as a doctor/nurse so as a popular debate is that these kind of professionally shouldn’t be paid less than footballers. Within these interviews the narrator will state facts and figures that bolster both sides of the argument being made with clips to accompany these. The end of the programme we will draw a conclusion from what we have found out and conducted, this will be accompanied by visual effects and clips.

Resource Requirements

-  Camera

-  Microphone

-  Permit to film games

-  Archive footage of football clips

-  Voice recorder

-  Editing equipment

-  Research

Questionairre

Are you Male or Female?

Male:  22

Female: 8

How old are you?

16-18

18-25

25+

How often do you watch?

0-2 Hours

2-4 Hours

4+ hours

How often do you watch documentaries?

Often

Rarely

Never

What’s your favourite type of documentary?

Sport

Music

History

Current Affairs

Political

Other

What topics in society interest you the most?

Politics

Crime

Healthcare

Music

Sport

Retail

Other

How long do you think an ideal documentary should last?

Half an hour

1 hour

1 hour and a half

2 hours

What time should documentaries be aired on TV?

Morning

Daytime

Evening

9pm Onwards

Do you like football?

Yes

No

Do you play football?

Yes

No

Sometimes

Sometimes

Do you believe footballers are paid too much?

Yes

No

Are you aware of how much footballers are paid?

Yes

Unsure

How much do you believe a top footballer should be paid a week?

100,000

50,000

25,000

10,000 under

Below 1,000

Would you like to see more or less football on TV?

More

Less

No opinion

What do you spend most money on that’s football related?

Merchandise

Match Tickets

TV Channels

Equipment

Other

None

Do you believe SKY should manipulate football fixtures for better TV time slots?

Yes

No

Secondary Research

Johnny Haynes

Johnny Haynes was regarded as the finest player to ever pull on a Fulham shirt and was held in such high regard, the Brazilian legend Pele once quoted him as the ‘best passer of the ball I've ever seen’. In his playing career Haynes managed to score 158 times in 658 appearances and was attracting attention from one of the giants in modern football: AC Milan. The Rossoneri famously had a bid of £80,000 rejected by Fulham which at the time was double the world transfer record. But more importantly once the £20 maximum wage fee was abolished, Haynes was rewarded with a £100 as the chairman at the time Tommy Trinder boasted he was worth £100 a week not knowing the wage cap would be abolished. But once the cap was lifted Haynes earnt the £100, the first of his time.

                                          Trevor Francis

Nottingham Forest, the reigning League champions and League Cup holders managed by Brian Clough, put in a bid for Francis which totalled just over £1 million. No player had ever been sold between English clubs for a seven-figure fee before, and the deal was sealed. While recognised as the first million pound player, the actual transfer fee for the player £1,150,000, including 15% commission which went to the Football League. There was a myth surrounding the story that the actual transfer fee was £999,999, £1 short of the million mark as Brian Clough wanted to ensure this milestone mark did not go to the player's head, but combined with the taxes and commission the eventual fee broke the million pound mark with the overall fee exceeded £1.1 million

Fernando Torres

On the 31st of January 2011, history was about to made as Chelsea football club had completed the signing of Fernando Torres from Liverpool football club on an undisclosed fee believed to be in the region of £50 million. the total fee had smashed the former British record transfer fee for a player which was in 2007 when Manchester City had completed the signing of Robinho for £32.5 million from Spanish giants Real Madrid

                                                       Cristiano Ronaldo

On the 26 June 2009 Real Madrid had confirmed the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United for a staggering £80 million, making the Portuguese winger the most expensive football of all time. Alongside a six year contract worth €11 million per year and a monumental a €1 billion buy-out clause. This deal saw all previous record breaking deals for a play to move clubs completely blown out the water as the closest reported signing for a player was his teammate Kaka sign for the Spanish giants at a measly €68.5 million in comparison to his new counterpart, Ronaldo.

Samuel Eto'o

In the summer of 2011 another milestone in football was about to be set as Russian Billionaires Anzhi Makhachkala had completed the signing of Samuel Eto'o for a rumoured £21.8 million, but that wasn't the record breaking part of the deal. Shock waves were sent round the world as it was confirmed Eto'o would earn a colossal £17.9 million after tax for three seasons from the Russian club, meaning he would subsequently earn a mind blowing £419,000 a week.


                                          Yaya Toure

In 2010 Manchester City made Yaya Toure the highest earning player in the Premier League. The deal saw the ex-Barcelona player sign a 5 year contract, earning a staggering £55.6 million. The basic wage he would earn week in week out for City would see him collect a massive £185,000 a week before tax but that figure will increase to £221,000 when the Government's 50% tax bracket comes into force. On top of his unbelievable basic wage, the Ivory Coast international will also be getting an image rights payment of £1.65m a year plus an additional £823,000 bonus each time City qualify for the Champions League. Toure will furthermore collect a £412,000 bonus should he win the Champions League with City whilst there are also additional bonuses for winning the Premier League and FA Cup, all these perks to his contract are also tax free.