Why do you play football?
That is the central question behind an on-line youth survey that has been launched by the West Australian Football Commission.
Log onto http://www.perceptionmapping.com/wafcyouthmap where children aged up to 17 who play football can anonymously answer questions that will enable WA Football’s governing body to directly find out what motivates, irks and excites its youth-aged participants.
The questions
in the 10-minute survey cover issues from playing, training, parent involvement
to the administration of the game.
WAFC Manager
of Community Development, Warren Nel, said the survey was designed to find out
what country and metropolitan youth-aged players wanted from the game.
“We conducted
a survey (Why kids stop playing football) last year and the most profound
finding was that children found it tough to commit a lot of time to football
and fit training and playing in around their school and home lives,” Mr Nel
said.
“This year the
survey is more comprehensive, in terms of the issues it covers as well as the
promotional strategy behind getting as many youth-aged players as possible to
take part.
“We want to
hear what the young players feel about every aspect of the game and from there
we can work with our community football clubs to ensure we delivering the
product the youth players want.”
Some of the
questions included in this year’s survey include: what are the best and worst
things about playing football; how the player gets to and from training; who
made the decision that they would play football; how many days a week do they
train and which is their preferred day; what things would you change about
football to make it better; what rules would you add or delete from the game;
who’s football advice do you take the most notice of; are you planning to play
senior football when you have finished junior football and do you think you
will be a volunteer helper at your football club one day.
The survey
will also be used as a bit of a ‘culture’ map, finding out which WAFL and AFL
clubs players support, what other sports they play as well as their views on
community (club) and school football.
