More women than ever are lining the pitch to watch football, but the game's growing fanbase is alienating its traditional roots, a survey has revealed.

Football's newest fans are female, rich and middle class, according to the largest ever survey of football fans in England and Scotland.

The report, for the Premier League, revealed that 33% of all new fans - those who started attending matches in the last five years - are female.

Women make up 14% of the crowds cheering on players at premiership matches.

The survey quizzed 22,000 season ticket holders of the 20 Premier League clubs, plus Scottish giants Rangers and Celtic, during the 1998-99 season.

But as well as revealing a boost in the game's popularity, the survey also found the cost of season tickets appeared too much for lower income fans.

Kevin Miles from the Football Supporters' Association said he had nothing against the new league of supporters, but added: "The problem is working-class people being priced out - they're the very bedrock support that kept the game going before it was booming, and they'll be the support the game will require in the future.

"If that link is broken by pricing, it doesn't bode well for the long-term future of the game."

Eighty-one per cent of those surveyed said they wanted rich premier league clubs to give cash aid to poorer clubs lower down the ladder.

Chelsea supporters pay the highest for season tickets, at nearly £600. Tottenham and West Ham fans are not far behind, paying nearly £500 for their tickets.

And with the average cost of a season ticket in excess of £300, some fans feel the game is no longer within their reach.

Ethnic fans in minority

But the prices do not seem to be deterring women. Twenty per cent of Derby County season ticket holders are female, followed closely by Leicester City at 20% and Nottingham Forest at 19%.

This boom has not extended into fans from ethnic minorities, however. Less than 1% of all season ticket holders are black or Asian. The survey also found that racism is still present at many grounds.

But Richard Scudamore, the league's chief executive, was upbeat about the findings.

He said they showed football's widespread appeal across all sections of the community.

"Football has now moved into the mainstream entertainment business," he said, adding that "all-female" groups at matches was not an uncommon sight. But having more women at football matches did not necessarily mean more family groups were attending games, he said.

Other findings revealed that English fans would like to see more European football, and that the importance of winning derby matches was decreasing.