© Reuters
- In ongoing news, Elon Musk is setting his sights on clearing fake/spam accounts off Twitter, but how could this effect the Twitter following of Premier League teams?
- By running a fake follower audit, Gambling.com reveals which Premier League teams have the highest number of fake followers and is likely to lose out the most
- Manchester United stand to lose the most followers in the league with an estimated 16.5 million fake followers, with Chelsea and Liverpool closely behind with 10.5 and 10 million fake followers, respectively
Using SparkToro's fake follower audit, the guys at Gambling.com have ranked which Premier League sides could be worst hit:
Manchester United Set to Take the Biggest Hit on Twitter
It's no surprise that they have a massive social media following considering their majorly successful history and the global presence of the club, but Manchester United are the ones who are set to be the most affected by Musk's crack down on fake accounts, with 16.5 million of their 34.3 million followers estimated to be fake.Chelsea and Liverpool could also be massively affected by Musk's plans, with the two giants of English football each having an estimated 10.5 million and 10 million fake followers on Twitter, respectively.
The table below ranks all Premier League teams in order of the number of followers potentially lost:
| Team | Number of Followers |
% of Fake Followers |
Fake Followers | New Figure |
| Manchester United | 34,321,022 | 48.2% | 16,542,733 | 17,778,289 |
| Chelsea | 23,528,723 | 44.5% | 10,470,282 | 13,058,441 |
| Liverpool | 23,016,588 | 43.5% | 10,012,216 | 13,004,372 |
| Arsenal | 20,810,770 | 40.2% | 8,365,930 | 12,444,840 |
| Manchester City | 14,646,325 | 44.3% | 6,488,322 | 8,158,003 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 8,328,803 | 36.4% | 3,031,684 | 5,297,119 |
| Everton | 2,980,529 | 32.4% | 965,691 | 2,014,838 |
| Leicester City | 2,663,049 | 34.3% | 913,426 | 1,749,623 |
| West Ham United | 2,535,563 | 34.9% | 884,911 | 1,650,652 |
| Newcastle United | 2,400,797 | 32.9% | 789,862 | 1,610,935 |
| Aston Villa | 2,231,710 | 31.8% | 709,684 | 1,522,026 |
| Southampton | 1,576,810 | 31.9% | 503,002 | 1,073,808 |
| Crystal Palace | 1,395,899 | 30.9% | 431,333 | 964,566 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 1,144,091 | 32.8% | 375,262 | 768,829 |
| Leeds United | 1,005,929 | 33.5% | 336,986 | 668,943 |
| Bournemouth | 652,056 | 36.5% | 238,000 | 414,056 |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | 710,519 | 28.6% | 203,208 | 507,311 |
| Fulham | 700,254 | 28.9% | 202,373 | 497,881 |
| Nottingham Forest | 557,908 | 27.3% | 152,309 | 405,599 |
| Brentford | 302,578 | 32.0% | 96,852 | 205,726 |
