An international survey, carried out by our friends at Heineken, has seen England claim an early success as Fabio Capello’s team prepares for this summer’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa – with football fans in this country been crowned world champions when it comes to passion for the game.

England supporters beat off strong competition from footballing heavyweights including Brazil, Spain, Germany and Holland to claim the title.

According to the Heineken research, English football fans spend more time talking, watching and reading about football than any other nation on the planet. The study found the typical Englishman watches televised football for an average of two hours and 22 minutes every week. They also spend another three hours and 21 minutes chatting about the latest results, goals or transfer gossip with their mates.

If that wasn’t enough to then the normal supporter in England will also read up on the latest gossip, team news and match action for an astonishing three hours and 52 minutes over the course of a week.

The research, which was carried out with 5,300 men aged between 25 and 40 in 15 countries, saw England top the table ahead of fans from Thailand. World Cup favourites Spain came in sixth with five times winner Brazil in third place.

The Germans were a ruthlessly efficient 11th . A big shock perhaps was the Dutch, with their famously fervent Orange Army,placed bottom of the league.Clearly your typical Dutch fan has more things on his mind than just football.



The ‘football mad’ league table* in full was as follows:

Talking Reading Watching



1. England 3hr 21min 2hr 22min 3hr 52min

2. Thailand 3hr 2min 2hr 15min 3hr 2min

3. Brazil 3hr 20min 2hr 10min 3hr 19min

4. Ireland 3hr 6min 2hr 11min 3hr 9min

5. Mexico 3hr 8min 2hr 1min 2hr 38min

6. Spain 2hr 43min 2hr 7min 2hr 40min

7. Italy 2hr 55min 1hr 58min 2hr 15min

8. China 2hr 34min 1hr 53min 2hr 32min

9. Scotland 2hr 41min 1hr 52min 2hr 32min

10. S. Africa 2hr 41min 1hr 56min 2hr 31min

11. Germany 2hr 40min 2hr 3min 2hr 16 min

12. Wales 2hr 20min 1hr 53min 2hr 35min

13. France 2hr 14min 1hr 47min 2hr 18min

14. Russia 2hr 22min 1hr 52min 2hr 35min

15. Holland 1hr 56min 1hr 32min 1hr 31min

*The research was conducted by OnePoll in May 2010 amongst 5,300 male adults in England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, Thailand, Ireland, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and the Netherlands