Survey Says: 70% of Spanish Fans Prefer Football to Sex

… although it’s difficult to imagine a situation where you couldn’t put one off a few hours for the other. I mean, come on … the game starts when the game starts. I kid. Another entry from the strange survey results file today, as a survey of 2,000 European football fans by the British Social Issues Research Centre revealed that a full seven of ten Spanish fans would choose a match over sex. No surprise to the legions of football widows out there, but I have to admit, the number seems artificially high. It might have something to do with the way the survey was done.

A closer look at the study reveals that its 2,000 respondents are divided over 17 European countries. That means that. on average, each country was represented by only 118 fans. That’s an average of less than six per La Liga side, hardly a robust sample. Sorry, BSIRC, but I’m going to have to call statistical shenanigans on this one.

Putting aside arguments over sample size and other such nerdery, there are some other amusing results to the study. 88% of Swedish fans, for example, claimed to have kissed or hugged a fellow fan at a match, and 66% of British fans admitted to crying over football at some point in their lives. The best stat – Spain apparently leads Europe in football hoodoo, with 69% of the fans surveyed doing some sort of pre-match ritual, which makes me feel far less weird about having to kiss my Scotland scarf before every kickoff. My only concern is not repeating whatever I did differently before last year’s qualifier with Georgia, because the football gods were clearly not pleased with me.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football