The true celebration of football lies in the love shared between the fans and the players on and off the pitch, but there’s no love for NPFL clubs.
With the rise of a new generation and a global village comes the need to celebrate love anew every day, but that’s not the case for NPFL clubs.
Recently, the African Football Digital Benchmark (AFDB) was released by RESULT Sports and Digital Sports Africa made public a list of the 100 most followed African clubs.
African Football Digital Benchmark and NPFL Clubs
The AFDB serves as the global metric for ranking digital and social performance of African football communities.
This is the first time the AFDB is releasing the top 100 rankings in its 9 years.
Only six Nigerian clubs made the top 100 with one of the clubs now defunct.
Vandrezzer FC is number one in Nigeria and 17th in Africa with 1.5 million followers across all social media.
The once darling club shaking things up in the 2nd-tier league couldn’t survive the storm despite shifting base twice.
The next Nigerian team on the list is nine-time NPFL champions, Enyimba at 60th with 231,000 digital fans.
The people’s elephants are present in five of the eight social platforms monitored.
Furthermore, Remo Stars(126k), Akwa United(125k), and Lobi Stars(120k) occupy the 82nd, 83rd and 87th positions.
Lastly, former NPFL champions, Rivers United is the last Nigerian team on the list at 95th with 114k.
The Way To the Fans’ Heart
NPFL clubs need to create brand and identity-building activities with the fans in their respective states.
Also, Improvement in content strategy, content distribution from training, and match days on their feeds.
The clubs lack community or engagement-driven focus, practicing basic journalism and not community management.
Meanwhile, the top 10 Clubs are Al-Ahly and Zamalek (Egypt) Simba (Tanzania) Raja Casablanca (Morocco) Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates, and Mamelodi Sundowns (South Africa in 5th, 6th, and 7th place, and Yanga (Tanzania) in 8th, Wydad in 9th and Pyramids (Egypt) in 10th place.
It’s time NPFL clubs brought football back to its roots because love is football.