On Wednesday , Sportsmail revealed for the first time how popular each Premier League club is around the globe according to Twitter followers . Arsenal came out on top globally with 5.68million followers ahead of Chelsea ( 5.49m ) and Manchester United ( 4.87m ) . But one country was missing : China – where the government outlaws Twitter as they seek to keep control of information and the media . Manchester United have over eight million followers on Weibo , almost double that of Twitter . Manchester City also have over eight million Weibo followers compared to 2.4million on Twitter . Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao are third on the list of clubs in the world with most Weibo followers . In Twitter ’ s place is a microblogging site called Weibo which has an incredible 27.2m Premier League fans – just one million short of the total number of Premier League fans on the whole of Twitter worldwide . So , do Chinese fans follow the same patterns at the rest of the world ? Well it is a story of one city in China , with the Manchester clubs accumulating 17,193,721 followers . United have 8,872,812 Weibo followers compared with 4,870,000 on Twitter , while City have 8,320,909 compared with just 2,420,000 . Barcelona have 5.4million followers on Weibo , the fourth most of any club in the world . Arsenal have 3.6million followers on Weibo compared to 5.6 million on Twitter . United ’ s support in China is no surprise as they have solid support across Asia on Twitter , but City punch well above their weight in China compared with the rest of the continent . Somewhat surprisingly Tottenham are the only other club Premier League club to have more followers in China than on Twitter – 1,367,140 compared with 1,090,000 . Elsewhere , Everton ’ s support is very much in the infancy with just 527 of the 275m Weibo users following Roberto Martinez ’ s side . Of the 10 Premier League clubs active on Weibo , six – United , City , Arsenal , Chelsea , Liverpool and Tottenham , feature in the top 20 most followed clubs in China . The Manchester clubs are first and second , with Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao – managed by Fabio Cannavaro – third and Barcelona fourth . Chelsea are 11th on the list of clubs with most followers on the Chinese microblogging site . Liverpool have 2.3million followers on Chinese site Weibo compared to 4.2million on Twitter . Bayern Munich are 13th , Real Madrid are way down in 18th – with 81,303 less followers than Tottenham – and Paris Saint Germain in 20th . And such is the popularity of the Premier League , Michael Owen has a staggering 3,074,148 followers on the site - which would put him 10th in the top 20 clubs list . With the popularity of football rapidly increasingly in China – in December 2014 the China ’ s President made football compulsory for children and added it to the national curriculum – expect Premier League clubs to intensify their effort to grab a slice of this lucrative market . SportQuake provided the data and their founder Matt House said : 'With its thrilling brand of football , the Premier League delivers mass engagement for fans in markets all over the world . We can say with confidence that more Premier League teams will be active on Weibo next season . 'As always , football and the Premier League is leading the way with new technologies , but we expect follower figures on both Twitter and Weibo to balance out to reflect fan bases as the platforms mature . '
Man United and Man City have over 1000 followers each on Twitter . Both clubs have more followers on the Chinese website than Twitter . Guangzhou Evergrande dragons are the third most followed club . Barcelona are fourth , but Real Madrid are down in 18th place . com Twitter League clubs feature in the top 12 on Weibo . Interactive map on Twitter followers around the world .