Story by Nestor Watach | Planet Football

Huge clubs includingReal Madrid,Barcelona,PSG,Liverpool, andArsenal are among the most-followed across social media, but which have the largest followings? Some of the results may surprise you.

Slugging it out for silverware is no longer the only competition football clubs are engaged in.

While winning games and lifting trophies will always be the be-all and end-all for any sane football fan, in the boardroom, senior figures are increasingly interested in the club’s marketability and online reach.

Nowadays, the elite clubs in the Champions League compete for attention on X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Thanks to sterling work done by journalist Paul Kemp over at Sportingpedia, we’ve got a detailed breakdown of all 36 Champions League social media followings.

While the Premier League is the most-watched league across the world, it’s Real Madrid and Barcelona who comfortably boast the largest followings on the major platforms.

The top two have twice as many followers as the third and fourth most-followed clubs – PSG and Manchester City – combined.

La Liga’s traditional big two are first and second, respectively, across X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Los Blancos boast a massive 180 million followers on Instagram, 132 million on Facebook, 69 million on TikTok, and a further 48 million on X.

Sportingpedia notes that Real Madrid’s fan base alone (430.5 million) is almost as large as the combined total of the 27 smallest clubs in the ranking, from Tottenham to Bodo/Glimt.

The Premier League’s reach is underlined by the fact that half of the top 10 clubs are English.

City surprisingly has the largest social media following of any Premier League club, while Newcastle United, far from a frequent fixture at Europe’s top table, is down in 19th, behind the likes of Ajax, Monaco, Marseille, and Napoli.

City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Tottenham all break the 100 million follower mark, alongside the continental powerhouses of Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Juventus, and Bayern.

The fact that City has 164 million followers across the four biggest social media platforms is a testament to their remarkable rise in the smartphone age.

Their size offers a reminder of how much Newcastle, with just under 19 million followers, has to grow as they look to shake up the traditional order.

At the other end of the scale, five relative minnows remain below the one-million mark across the four platforms. Slavia Prague (0.91m), Royal Union Saint-Gilloise (0.88m), Qarabag (0.52m), Pafos (0.32m), and Bodo/Glimt’s (0.29m) totals pale next to Europe’s biggest names.

Still, exposure on the big European nights can drive rapid gains if performances or players resonate.

The scale of the gap is illustrated by Real Madrid and Bodo/Glimt. The former has a social media following over 1400 times higher than the latter’s.

Every Champions League club’s social media following

Here’s how the full ranking breaks down.

This is every club in the 2025-26 Champions League listed in order of their total followers across the four major platforms – X, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Note: All figures are in millions.

1. Real Madrid — 430.5
2. Barcelona — 378.2
3. PSG — 185.1
4. Manchester City — 164.1
5. Liverpool — 159.2
6. Juventus — 157.6
7. Chelsea — 149.4
8. Bayern Munich — 140.2
9. Arsenal — 111.3
10. Tottenham — 106.3
11. Atletico Madrid — 72.33
12. Inter — 69.7
13. Borussia Dortmund — 59
14. Galatasaray — 48.4
15. Ajax — 25.5
16. Monaco — 24
17. Marseille — 21.8
18. Napoli — 19.2
19. Newcastle United — 18.9
20. Bayer Leverkusen — 16.98
21. Athletic Bilbao — 16.68
22. Benfica — 12.1
23. Sporting Lisbon — 10.91
24. Villarreal — 8.43
25. PSV — 5.39
26. Eintracht Frankfurt — 5.3
27. Atalanta — 3.61
28. Olympiacos — 3.42
29. Club Brugge — 3.04
30. Copenhagen — 1.55
31. Kairat — 1.25
32. Slavia Prague — 0.91
33. Union Saint-Gilloise —  0.88
34. Qarabag — 0.52
35. Pafos — 0.32
36. Bodo/Glimt — 0.29