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11 J. Pol. & L. 47 (2018)
Whether Loyalty to a Football Club Can Translate into a Political Support for the Club Owner: An Empirical Evidence from Thai League

handle is hein.journals/jpola11 and id is 271 raw text is: Journal of Politics and Law; Vo1. II. No. 3: 2018 ISSN 1913-9047 E-ISSN 1913-9055 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Whether Loyalty to a Football Club Can Translate into a Political Support for the Club Owner: An Empirical Evidence from Thai League Thanaporn Sriyakul', Anurak Fangmanee' & Kittisak Jermsittiparsert 'Faculty of Business Administration, Mahanakorn University of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand 2Khon Kaen United F.C., Khon Kaen, Thailand 3 Department fOr Management of Science and Technology Development, Ton Due Thang University. H-o Chi Minh City, Vietnam Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Due Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Correspondence: Kittisak Jerrnsittiparsert, Ton Due Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. E-mail: kittisak.jermsittiparserttdt.edu.vn Received: April 13, 2018 Accepted: May 20, 2018 Online Published: August 30, 2018 doi: I0.5539/jpl.v 1n3p47 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/jpl.vl1n3p47 Abstract The participation of politicians and their kin in the sport of football, as presidents of football clubs, in the past many years has been widely criticized as a use of the football clubs as tools to gain popularity and, possibly, a political base or a voting bloc for these politicians. This research is conducted in order to (1) study the loyalty level towards football clubs and the cotresponding political supports expressed towards the football club executives and (2) examine the relationship between such demographic factors as gender, age, educational level, occupation, income, duration of being a fan, as well as loyalty to the football club and the aforemetintioned political supports, by collecting data from fans of five football clubs competing in the Thai League during the 2016 season. Including 385 fans, the data are collected using questionnalire, and then analyzed in) terms of frequency, percentage, mean, standard variation, and Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis with the significance level set at five percent. The research finds that overall the fans of all five clubs are highly loyal to the club and express a moderate political support for the club executives. It also finds that gender, age, and education have no relationship to the political support, while occupation, income, duration of being a fan, and especially loyalty to the football club are correlated with the political support. This result confirms the hypothesis that loyalty to a football club can, in fact, potentially translate into a political support for the politicians who are also the owners of the football clubs. Keywords: football club, Thai league, Politicians, loyalty, political support 1. introduction The research by Wasan Panyakaew, Arjin Tongyukong, Pongsakorn Sa-nguansak, and Plaifa Namprai (2016: 37-38) on Thailand's Prermier League: Masculinity Adolescence, and Culture of Consumerism and the research by Chalinee Sonphlay (2016a: 138-139) on The Roles of Thai Politicians in a Thai Football Club: Business or Politics indicate th hi eaue as the top professional football leage in hailad since it w established in 2009, has led to substantial changes in Thailand's professional football. The competition was formerly organized in the name of Johnny Walker Thailand Soccer League along with the Provincial Lcague, which, as seen from its inability to build a fan base, were not very successful. A survey of people in Bangkok in the areas near the football stadiums found that only 29.7 percent had attended a match. With this arose a saying that the football matches were played among themselves and watched among themselves. A later expansion has, however, seen the number of stadium attendees increase consistently, from around 900,000 in 2009, and from 2010 to 2014, from 1.1 million, 1.3 million, 1.4 million, 1.6 million, to 1.9 million, respectively. These numoer did not include the number of TV audience, which has also consistently risen, as observed from the increase of broadcast fees from 40 million baht per year in 2009 to 200 million baht per year in 2011, 600 million baht per year in 2014, and more than I billion baht per year from 2017 on.

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