SPONSORED EDITORIAL

Are you a football fan unhappy with the direction your club is heading? Are the pies at the ground an absolute rip-off? Is the left back the slowest in the league?

Thanks to the free PitchDMM mobile phone app, your voice will now be heard at the right place at the right time. And that’s not all.

Fans can also pick their own team and formation on a match to match basis and compare it their friends' choices in a familiar ‘fantasy football’ style setting.

The app provides insight into what fans actually think about their club.

“The gamification of the app is great fun and allows football fans to have a voice on how their club is being run,” said the company's founder Susannah Schofield.

But the goal of this latest football innovation goes beyond the mere desire to offer fans another forum of engagement when it comes to getting things off their chests.

The data (or feedback from the fans) is collected from the app and then streamlined to clubs. In other words, those voices will be heard and not simply evaporated into cyberspace.

“Too often you will see rants on social media and these will go largely ignored by the powers that be at a football club,” continued Susannah, who is based in Sevenoaks.

“A common complaint from football fans is that their club just doesn’t care about their opinion. We aim to change that by giving them one place to give their opinion in an easy to use way that produces statistical results to drive change.”

“This commercial data is vital to the clubs, who have been intrigued to hear about our app."

By supplying them with hard data, as opposed to page after page of ranting, we hope to make them listen.”

It’s not just the clubs that stand to benefit. The data can also processed into interesting information and figures, tailor-made for broadcasters and other sports media outlets.

“Pundits also can use the newsletters we produce weekly to debate the real facts and discuss the issues that matter to fans.”

“It can also be used on a wider scale by the media to compare club statistics in much the same way as they would compare assists or clean sheets.”

The app’s new ‘FanTime’ function is also predicted to hit the back of the net. Footballers, managers or even members of the public can simply record themselves asking a topical football related question. Fans can then answer in video, audio or text form.

“We have the ability to share the responses on social media outlets and feel it is another way for fans to really feel like they are part of the football world,” added Susannah.

PitchDMM is championed by Westerham-born former English international John Salako and is the app's official ambassador. There are also plans to move into other areas of sport apart from football including cricket, rugby, NFL and Formula 1.

For the moment, the app only covers the Premier League and the Championship although the console website (accessible via the app) is for all football teams to share their information.

There are also plans in the pipeline to get a registered charity up and running called 'Pitch-in' which will raise money to help fund grass roots football and academy wellbeing.

“Fans are very receptive to anything that might give them a voice,” Susannah concluded.

“We’ve had a great response.”