The week started on a high note especially for football fans across the world.
See, on Sunday, the European Super League (ESL) was suggested, only for it to receive mass criticism from loyal fans. If you need to know more about the Super League, here is a nice explainer that touches on its benefits and shortcomings.
With the league now out of discussion for most leading clubs (and much to the happiness and relief of fans), some key social media markers have emerged. The markers are most about criticism about the affected teams, and have seen trust in ownership has massively deteriorated according to a study conducted by BetVictor.
Evaluating social media input for the top Premier League owners, before the ESL announcement, during the time they took part in the discussion, and following pressure from fans that saw them withdraw from the competition, data has revealed that while things have calmed down and things are back to normal, the rise in the number of calls made for club owners and chairpersons to leave has increased significantly.
“In total, there have been almost half a million calls for owners of the six breakaway teams to leave since the ESL was announced on Sunday, a rise of 19,429% on the Monday to Saturday before it. Arsenal’s Stan Kroenke lost the most trust in fans, with “Kroenke out” tweets rising by over 158,000%,” reads a statement from BetVictor.
The majority of calls were made by Manchester Unted fans, with more than 220K different tweets asking the Glzers to leave the company. That was a 26.6K% rise. he second largest percentage rise comes at Chelsea, where “Abramovich out” tweets rose by 70,133%.
At the peak of the uproar, it was negative sentiment towards Manchester City owners that increased the most, however.
Across Sunday and Monday, the number of negative tweets rose by 51%, although it was still the lowest percentage of negative posts compared to positive.
Both City and Spurs owners saw 61% of tweets towards them negative, while Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea ownership saw over 80% of tweets directed towards them negative over the period.
Following the withdrawal of the six sides from the competition, the percentage of negative tweets towards owners generally dropped, with only Spurs fans upping the ante, with an increase of 7% to 68% negativity.
BetVictor has summarized the data well, which you can check here for more insights.
