AFC Asian Cup 2019 in UAE a digital hit

By Michael Angelo S. Murillo
Senior Reporter
APART from churning out exciting matches on the field, the ongoing AFC Asian Cup 2019 in the United Arab Emirates has proven to be a digital platform hit as well.
In numbers shared by the Asian Football Confederation to global media, the latest edition of the quadrennial continental sporting spectacle has allowed the football body to expand its reach to 122 million to date through its official social media platforms.
The AFC said in a week of action its Facebook (fb.com/theafcasiancup) page has seen almost 40 million people engaged while the official Instagram account (instagram.com/afcasiancup) has clocked up more than 49 million impressions on the collection of stunning images from the competition.
Video highlights are also capturing attention with more than 7.9 million views on YouTube, watching a total of 14.1 million minutes of content — and a further 1.5 million Arabic viewers have tuned in through the AFC Arabic official Twitter account (twitter.com/afcasiancup_ar).
There have also been close to six million people watching the video coverage on Facebook and 20.9 million have followed the exclusive insights on Instagram Stories.
On Twitter, there have been more than 22.4 million impressions — compared to just three million in the entire tournament in Australia, where just a million were engaged via Instagram in 2015, while the Facebook numbers totaled 11 million.
The impressive numbers it has been getting on social media platforms, the AFC said, is a testament to how its efforts to cultivate the community and the scene is steadily bearing fruit and that future could only be brighter.
“It is clear that we have grown our digital community in the last four years and now the reward is being seen with record numbers on the official Asian Cup accounts — and these records have been created in just one week of the tournament in the United Arab Emirates,” AFC General Secretary Dato’ Windsor John said in a statement as he hailed the impressive feat.
“The sheer numbers reinforce the AFC’s Vision and Mission to better engage with our passionate fans by staging world-class competitions for our players and teams and exemplifies the undeniable prestige and stature of the AFC Asian Cup,” he added.