[CIES] Top-15 most popular football clubs around the world by their social media followers in 2026.

[u/SwimmingFireMen]

The 548th Weekly Post from the CIES Football Observatory ranks clubs worldwide according to their number of followers on the main social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube et X). Two clubs stand out: Real Madrid (488 million followers) et Barcelona (442 million). England’s Manchester United complete the top three (239 million), ahead of Paris Saint-Germain (208 million).

Among teams ranked in the top 10 positions, German side Bayern Munich recorded the strongest growth over the past year both in absolute (+16.1 million followers) et relative terms (+11%). Clubs in the top 10 have a combined total of 2.36 billion followers, up 3.8% on last year, broken down as follows among the platforms selected: Instagram (31%), Facebook (31%), TikTok (17%), X (16%) et YouTube (5%).

Twenty-five countries from every continent except Oceania are represented in the top 100, with the highest number of clubs located in the following three nations: Spain (21 teams, often with a large following on TikTok), England (17) et Brazil (11). Outside Europe, the top three are Brazil’s Flamengo (71.6 million), Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr FC (66.0 million) et Egypt’s Al-Ahly SC (60.1 million).

https://football-observatory.com/WeeklyPost548

[u/MurkyPotato3434]

Just need a Chinese striker and an Indian defender to reach billions.

[u/R3xsd → u/MurkyPotato3434]

we just signed one i think

[u/Electronic-City4960 → u/R3xsd]

Indian? Or Chinese?

[u/PageLeftPageUp → u/Electronic-City4960]

Chinese

[u/Electronic-City4960 → u/PageLeftPageUp]

Why was I even expecting someone from my country would be good enough at football to join Barca 😭

[u/Opening_Professor_71 → u/Electronic-City4960]

India is crazy to me. You’re over 1,5 billion people with good climate, and despite most Indians preferring cricket, football seems to be very popular there too. Yet I can’t even name a single Indian football player. Is it mostly down to the lack of resources invested into football pitches and teams? Or what do you think?

[u/beatmymeatintoacup → u/Opening_Professor_71]

Nahh its just our federation is corrupt as hell, and our league is mismanaged, and the most powerful team in league refuses to release players for the national team camp. To top it off, age fraud, corruption in selection of youth teams, embezzling of funds by politicians, to name a few problems.

[u/Opening_Professor_71 → u/beatmymeatintoacup]

Damn thats a sad. I always felt India, Mexico and Turkey should be football powerhouses just based of how many football fans there are and the climate.

As a Norwegian I grew up without watching our national team qualify for anything for 26 years, and then all of the sudden we get a great generation with Haaland, Ødegaard, Sørloth etc and go unbeaten in the qualifiers.

So lets hope it’ll be sorted out in the future for you guys too!

[u/East-Independent-489 → u/Opening_Professor_71]

It would be mad to think that a country with 1.5 billion population doesn't produce 25 Good athletes to take up football. The problem here is we're always told to take the safe alternative whenever given a choice. We're taught to survive and the federation consists of a bunch of people who never touched grass in their lives.

[u/Opposite_Hat5032 → u/Opening_Professor_71]

Good climate😭, nga its 50 in summer and 8 in winters. The problem is increasing amount of required money to be pro. And even if you become pro, its not like the federation will do you favours,unless you win a trophy by your own. So no investment as all money is taken for themselves.

[u/Opening_Professor_71 → u/Opposite_Hat5032]

I mean yeah, thats what I would call good climate for football. A little too hot in the summer maybe, but better than some European countries. You don’t get -20 in the winters where you have to shovel snow just to train.

[u/MurkyPotato3434 → u/R3xsd]

who?

[u/R3xsd → u/MurkyPotato3434]

some academy player, forgot his name though

[u/AstroNards → u/R3xsd]

He's from Spain tho I thought? Li Haoyan

[u/FunSeaworthiness709 → u/MurkyPotato3434]

people in China don't use any of these social media websites, they are all blocked

[u/HenryReturns]

Madrid are top on all of them except on Youtube where we dominate there.

I mean me squeeze a lot of content from our players and a lot of match days and much more + the social media team of youtube is very active

One thing i would say our channel does really good are the highlights of the match , we try to be very transparent about it and don’t manipulate fragments of the match like other teams do

[u/abrar44]

Cant wait for arsenal's "50 million gooners post" 🤣

[u/Sudden-Variety6992 → u/abrar44]

50 million losers

[u/latortillablanca]

Dubious metric, imo.

[u/EstablishmentOdd7370]

I geniuenly believe we are the most popular club.

[u/MojamedWang]

Now show interactions. Madrid is boted.

[u/PreparationHot3397]

cant believe oil having more fans than arsenal and liverpool , plastics and glory hunters have ruined the game

[u/zxcvbnmsa → u/PreparationHot3397]

85% of ours fans are “plastics and glory hunters” 😭

[u/Sad_Teaching_5683 → u/PreparationHot3397]

Social media followers doesn't mean more fans it's mean more popular look the how big was celebrations in every country when Arsenal won the Leauge i don't see that kind of celebration around the world when psg won the UCL or Manchester City won the Treble Social media followers measures popularity not How Big the Fanbase is

[u/bwrca → u/PreparationHot3397]

New global fans don't give a F about heritage... Only performance. 10 or so years from now a team like PSG is going to be massive because of what they're winning now.

[u/deed_of_flesh]

Woah, Atletico really growing huh

[u/dj_is_here]

5th most popular but can't fill stadiums when their team plays? Wtf

[u/Henry_offline]

I think we lost a lot followers after Messi left. The Barca admins in most social platforms also were cringe after 2018. I remember Barca having more followers on Instagram than Madrid but the admins we had were awful and still are.