The most contested soccer World Cup ever got underway with (late?) controversies over the thousands of migrant workers who died during the preparation work, the denied LGBTQIA+ rights, the many bans and the controversial participation of Iran.
Despite the controversy, the soccer world cup still remains the sporting event with the largest television audience. According to FIFA, the average live television audience for the 64 matches of the 2018 World Cup in Russia was 191 million, with the final clash between France and Croatia drawing an average television audience of 517 million. while live coverage of the match reached more than a billion people in total.
To try and verify the orientation of football fans, we analyzed the presence on Facebook of the 32 national teams present in Qatar in the last week. With more than 12.2 million followers, the Brazilian national team is the fanpage with the most likes. Just under 80 thousand new followers in the last seven days, when the world “fever” naturally began to rise.
The Saudi Arabian Football Federation is the one that has recorded the largest percentage increase in followers in the last week: + 6.04%. With over 86,000 new followers, the Facebook page of the English national football team is the one that is growing the most in terms of absolute values. Although the English have almost 3.5 million fewer followers than the Brazilians, they are the team whose fanpage records the highest number of interactions (like + reaction + comments and shares). 1.28 million in the last seven days against the approximately 722 thousand of the cariocas.
The highest engagement rate is that generated by the Ghanaian Federation, which stands at an engagement rate of 2.69% compared to a general average of the 32 teams at 0.44%. The worst are the Spaniards with only 0.006% involvement rate. The post that has generated the most engagement is from FIFA, whose fanpage has 50.8 million followers. This is the video of the opening ceremony of the world championship which counts, thanks also to almost 257 thousand shares, 51 million views. And 3.2 million between likes and other reactions. Of these, only 2,467 are reactions of anger, testifying that boycotting the World Cup is something for the few after all.
And, to confirm, if necessary, that the World Cup is also a major commercial operation, the post referring to Qatar 2022 that generated the greatest engagement is a photo showing Messi and Ronaldo playing chess, on a chessboard placed on a Louis Vuitton suitcase. Post published on the fanpages of both players, with Ronaldo’s getting 8.4 million likes and reactions, more than 435,000 shares and over 399,000 comments. And that of Messi with 6.1 million likes and reactions, more than 404,000 shares and almost 391,000 comments
With an average of 18 daily posts, always in the last week, the Mexican national team is the one with the highest frequency of publications. Mexicans are also second, behind Brazil, in number of followers. Approximately 11.1 million to date. With less than one post a day (0.71 posts/day on average), the Morocco national football team publishes the least. Finally, the hosts, the Qatar Football Association, has just over 641,000 followers, of which around 48,000 new in the last week (+8.1%). More than 227 thousand interactions in the last seven days. Equal to an engagement rate of 0.49%. Slightly above the general average above.
