The Saudi Professional League [SPL] ranks third on Twitter among global football leagues for conversation and interaction, surpassing major domestic competitions worldwide last season that include the Italian, German and French ones.

The league has attracted huge interest with tweets about the SPL exceeding 80 million, tweeted by 40m accounts and causing high response demonstrating the power of the competition compared to the best globally. Spain’s La Liga and its clubs lead the way being tweeted about 167m times by 97m accounts, followed by the English Premier League with 161m tweets and 91m accounts.

Football in Saudi Arabia is the most popular sport and is being followed by two thirds of the Kingdom’s population, mostly young people, which resulted in huge interaction making the domestic league among the most followed worldwide. This is also reflected by stadium attendances which exceeded 10m supporters for the first time ever last season.

The SPL has been supported massively by the government through the Sport General Authority investing $660m. This reflects a desire to create new professional levels, improve pitches and recruit the best players and managers globally, while also implementing the best technological methods in sports.