Continuing rises in disability abuse and inaccessible public transport as barriers to attending live sport have been revealed by the 2024 Level Playing Field Annual Fan Survey.
The results display the top ten overall barriers to disabled fans, with ‘cost of attending’ seeing the largest overall rise, while ‘physical access at stadiums’ and ‘attitudes of others’ remained the two most common respectively.
A record number of disabled supporters took part in the charity’s fourth annual survey, with a report now available to view, featuring new areas of focus on arrival and departure times, ticketing and payment methods.
The proportion of respondents that reported there were any sports or sporting venues they felt unable to attend due to inaccessibility dropped for a successive year. While that movement is encouraging, it still displays more than a fifth of disabled fans feel unable to attend certain venues due to inaccessibility.
View the 2024 Level Playing Field Annual Fan Survey results report here.
Data from across all 2055 responses has been displayed in the overall report, with specific breakdowns also sent to all relevant clubs and governing bodies. This enables them to see localised trends and highlights particular areas raised by disabled fans, regarding their services, facilities and communication.
Chair of Level Playing Field, Tony Taylor, said: “These results have identified key areas for action, and I am grateful so many disabled fans shared their experiences with us.
“The trends we have seen continue are particularly concerning and will take much of our focus. I am pleased to confirm the charity has already had engagement from other organisations, to make vital improvements to access and inclusion in response to these results.
“Once again, it is encouraging to see a drop in the proportion of fans telling us they are unable to attend some venues due to inaccessibility. The figures there remain unacceptable however and show how much work there is still to be done.
“These survey results provide us with irrefutable evidence to push for change and the team at Level Playing Field will be doing that throughout the course of 2025.”
An online forum will be held on Thursday 23 January, with a presentation on the results from the 2024 Level Playing Field Annual Fan Survey.
The Zoom call will begin at 6pm and is open to both disabled and non-disabled fans. There will be opportunity for supporters to feedback and discuss what the data suggests. Please register here, by midnight on Wednesday 22 January.
A report on the 2024 Level Playing Field Annual Fan Survey is now available to view and a plain text version can be found, here. Members of the team discuss the results in an episode of The Level Playing Field Podcast, which can be found via your chosen podcast provider.
Any queries on the report can be emailed in to: info@levelplayingfield.org.uk