Who are the most Supported Football Clubs in the World?

It’s no surprise that Real Madrid is the most supported football club in the world. Their unmatched success in the UEFA Champions League and their policy of signing ‘Galacticos’ every season under controversial president Florentino Perez always kept Los Blancos ahead of the rest. Madrid has 358.1 million social media followers.

Although La Liga is not the most watched or popular domestic league in the world, it has the two most supported teams. Barcelona is the only other football club with 300 million followers across the four principal social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube).

The list of the top 10 most followed football clubs on social media is also no surprise. The only debatable point when it comes to online following is the legitimacy of the followers. Twitter (X) and Facebook have enormous issues with bots, catfishing, and fake accounts. 

SportsBoom’s top 10 list of most supported clubs in the world indicates that many of the clubs represented get many followers illegitimately from bots and fake accounts. However, for the sake of argument, SportsBoom has researched the data from each of the 10 teams’ social media accounts and tallied the numbers: This is what we get. 

The Most Followed Football Clubs on Social Media

Real Madrid leads the way in on-field and off-field success. The club is a commercial behemoth, and its success in silverware is unmatched throughout world football. They have won the most trophies and have the biggest following. Barcelona, Madrid’s hated rivals, are second, the only other team with a combined 300 million online followers. 

However, the Spanish giants are the only teams from La Liga to make the top 10 list of most supported football clubs. The English Premier League (EPL) dominates the list. This is also no surprise. The Premier League is the most popular domestic league in the world; it is the most watched, and its teams' support throughout the globe is unrivalled. 

Five EPL clubs land in the top 10 charts: Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool Football Club, Chelsea, and Arsenal. United is the most followed club on social media. Their historic success was a perfect storm of circumstances which saw them become one of the biggest clubs on the planet.

The advent of the rebranding of England’s First Division to the Premier League happened during the early years of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign. The TV deal catapulted the EPL ahead of every league, and nothing has changed since 1992. Recent years since Ferguson retired have been abject for the club. However, United still have a worldwide following that tops every EPL club.

Liverpool celebrating with Premier League Trophy//Getty Images

Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal make up the rest. The Gunners are the only club shy of 100 million social media followers. Paris Saint-Germain sits fourth. Juventus and Bayern Munich are eighth and ninth, respectively. These three teams represent Ligue 1, Serie A, and the Bundesliga. 

PSG has never won a European trophy and has only played in one UEFA Champions League final. The exorbitant amount of money from club owners Qatar Sports Investments has seen the club buy success in Ligue 1, but they have faltered in Europe. PSG implemented Real Madrid’s policy of signing big-name players and superstars to attract international respect as much as for winning. 

PSG signed many superstar footballers like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Luis Suarez, and many other world-class players. The validity of PSG's social media accounts is also questionable. A club with a limited history and lack of continental success but has the fourth-most social media followers is dubious. 

Bayern and Juve’s positions in European football history are unique. The weight of history, domestic, continental, and world club success puts these two clubs in the position of being two European football's greatest clubs. While City and PSG claim to have more social media followers, they do not have the history, respect, and silverware to be compared with the two Qatar business enterprises.

Concerns over Accuracy of Manchester City Social Media Numbers 

Nouveau riche Manchester City has climbed the list due to their dominance of England over the past fifteen years. However, there are legitimate concerns about the validity of City’s social media following numbers. It is questionable that City has created the fifth-largest social media following in an organic way.

A 2019 study by Edinburgh-based agency Pilot Fish Media has found that 58% of Man City’s 15 million Instagram followers and 33% of its 7.2 million Twitter (X)followers are fake, which amounts to about 50% of followers across both platforms. Only Nike and Foot Locker had more fake accounts following the companies. 

The club is also under investigation for offences dating back to the Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group takeover in 2008. The BBC reported that the club’s 115 charges relate to “artificially inflated the money coming into the club, with particular respect to commercial and sponsorship deals.”

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan//Getty Images

Furthermore, the Premier League claim “money was actually coming from the club owner (City Football Group Limited), which doesn't count towards FFP (Financial Fair Play), but was being disguised as sponsorship income, which does count towards FFP.”

The BBC added: “The other charges are in relation to Manchester City being alleged to have artificially deflated the costs of running the club by having managers on contracts with another company connected to the owners so that they only put through a small element of the true cost of managing the club through the books.”  

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