Nigeria Football Market Report 2019: Fans Favorite Player and Most Supported Club

- Who is Nigerians Favorites player 

- Which is the most Supported Club, go through this report now.

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa has about 100 million active football fans. That means half of the country's population of 200 million people are actually football consumers. If that is correct then Nigeria's football market become as interesting and as important as the Chinese market.

According to the 2019 edition of PopularSide report produced by GreenHunters Sports International, Nigeria's leading sports digital marketing agency, Cristiano Ronaldo is the number one player followed online among Nigerian people, ahead of Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Liverpool's Mohammed Salah

Indications also show that Nigerian fans engage mostly with individuals through their club to their national team performance.
Mohammed Salah, Paul Pogba, Edwin Hazard and Victor Moses were the most followed players in Nigeria, of players playing in English Premier league. These players performances in their clubs were teanslated in their African leanage as well as their countries qualifications, progression in the FIFA World cup 2018; which Pogba won with France and Hazard's Belgium came Third.

Nigerian fans loyality to clubs with players of African descents doing well in English Prenier League far outweigh other European leagues or any other league in the world...with a new report highlighting the tremendous growth of Liverpool and Manchester city supporters far higher than Real Madrid which dominated both Uefa Champions League and FIFA world club competition in last five years.

Nigeria's fan behavior isn't unique to that of the West with Nigerians often following their favorite club over individual players. That again can be relative, because they also follow a player doing well who is either from Nigeria or African descent. This can also result in fans following multiple teams where the player has transferred from.

The rivalry between Chelsea and Arsenal fans are still intact, but has reduced in intensity since both team struggle to keep up with the top four teams on the Premiership table.

Nevertheless, Chelsea remain the most supported team in Nigeria; with Arsenal and Manchester United trailing behind. Manchester city and Liverpool fans are growing faster than any other team in the Premier league.

The market situation is actually complex because mosr fans in Nigeria support multiple teams. When their favorite team isn't doing so well, they cross carpet to their alternative team. A lot of Chelsea and Manchester united fans are also fans of Real Madrid; and fans of Arsenal are also fans of Barcelona too.

In numbers, if considered how the seasons had gone between 2015 and 2018, you would rather say Real Madrid were better supported as an alternative team, as well as Barcelona. Of course, Laliga is the second most loved league in Nigeria apart from the Premier League.

The fact is, the fans would rather prefer to be called "the Blues" and "the Gunners." In our survey 15 million fans responded that Chelsea was their favorite team, 19.5 million (higher) marked that Real Madrid was their alternative...  13.3 million responded to be Arsenal fans and 16.7 million (higher) indicated Barcelona as their alternative team. The thing is, when Chelsea and Arsenal teams are not doing well, the fans cross carpet to their alternative team to save their heart and face from much ridicule.

However, according to information from the PopularSide Report, Chelsea is still definitively the most followed sports team by Nigerians Online platform Instragram and Google+ with 12.3 million followers.

The data show Chelsea has nearly four million more followers than Spanish side Real Madrid, but on only two million more than its local English Premier League rival Arsenal.

Liverpool was singled out for praise as the second-fastest growing club across all platforms following UEFA champions league finals in May 2018, despite the loss.

Without a doubt, Nigeria represents an increasingly important scenario for all European football clubs. Unfortunately, Nigerians hardly support their own teams in their local Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL); because a lot of issues that has bedeviled the league.

 Laliga has made a push to increase its Nigerian fan base over the past year or two and in return help develop NPFL. It has strengthened its existing cooperation agreement with NPFL by increasing support for local league players, coaches and referees development across boarder.