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The Champions league is still the most important tournament to young football fans, but there are signs of increased interest in domestic tournaments over the past 12 months. This was the finding of a poll of more than 1,000 young fans of Match of the Day magazine on . The Champions League topped the poll with 50% of fans saying it was the most important competition, down from 67% last year.

With a whirlwind of matches in various tournaments during the past few weeks, the Premier League was voted the second most important competition, favoured by 33% of voters – up from 25% last year – which may have been influenced by the closer title race this year. There was good news for FA Cup fans with a revival in its fortunes: 10% of young fans now rate it as the most important tournament, up from 3% last year, when even the Europa League had surpassed it in terms of importance. This time the Europa league was favoured by 5% of fans, followed by the Carling Cup with just 2%.

According to Match of the Day magazine editor Ian Foster: "We've some shock results in the Premier League this season with no runaway leader at the top or struggling club adrift at the bottom. This has led to renewed interest in the Premier League and FA Cup, and we've seen managers fielding stronger teams in domestic cup competitions in a bid to win silverware. This is great news for football, and young fans - the lifeblood of football - seem to acknowledge this."

NOTES TO EDITORS
i) The poll of young football fans was conducted on MOTDmag.com in March with 1,156 people taking part.

ii) Match of the Day magazine, the market leading youth football magazine, is the official magazine of the TV programme. Aimed at 8-14 year olds it has 58,447 weekly readers according to the last ABC circulation figures.

Toby Hicks