Who is bigger? Obviously, the last 15 years have changed Barca's image. Before that they would definitely not have made the top 3 and maybe not even the top 5. But most of the other big clubs had one or two outstanding periods where they gained their reputation. And Barcelona's era happens to be a fairly recent one (thus affecting both historical and current metrics) and it was one of the most successful periods a club has ever had.
List of the 30 biggest clubs (by France Football)
- Thread starter Trizy
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
A few quibbles; I think we are bigger than Barca in the grand scheme of things and I’d consider Juventus bigger than Liverpool.
A few that I’m totally not having is that City, Chelsea and Spurs are bigger than Milan and Inter or even Atletico. Milan have 7 european cups and mostly in the last 30 years.
A few that I’m totally not having is that City, Chelsea and Spurs are bigger than Milan and Inter or even Atletico. Milan have 7 european cups and mostly in the last 30 years.
Can’t really argue with most of the list but Gladbach being on there sticks out as pretty random.
Well you may call me biased but I'd say Utd are bigger than Barca and probably Bayern as well. But then that's just my view, i'm sure plenty will disagree.
Random isn't the word, they were one of the biggest club in the 70s, they have had all time greats in their ranks and have a relatively big stadium.
Independiente gets in over River Plate.
Well, yeah, I am sure plenty will disagree. There are few important metrics where United or Bayern top Barcelona. I think the top 6 are pretty fine.
I hate Barcelona but they basically won the World Cup in 2010. They have a huge history of all time greats playing at their club, they have the best player of all time in Messi, they've won a treble twice and have the biggest stadium in the Europe (the world?). They are rightfully 2nd on that list.
There are two types of big club - those big now and those big for a sustained period over their history. Clearly they have tried to merge the two types, but these criteria look slightly stacked towards current attractiveness as opposed to overall long-term pedigree. There needs to be some effort to account for domestic dominance and then weigh it according to the strength of the league in continental competition (like the ELO did in the video below). The Ballon D'Or criteria is also flawed given it was only open to non-Europeans for less than half of its existence.
Sorry, is it number of World Cup winners in current squad or the number of World Cup winners who, at time of winning, were in your squad? Because if its the latter it makes perfect sense to me as your clubs ability to attract the best of the best at their highest level (Real, AC Milan, Bayern historically), and if its the former that's nonsense.
No River Plate? Sad list
Well most of their achievements are fairly recent and while you can't knock their achievements, I don't think they are as big as Man Utd on a global level. I mean most of their fans (outside Catalunya) only became fans due to Messi or Ronaldinho in the last 10-15 years.
Why United is bigger than Barca?
Honors:
European Cups: Barcelona 5 - 3 United
League titles: Barcelona 25 - 20 United
Domestic Cups: Barcelona 30 - 12
Players:
Ballon D'Or winners: Barcelona 11 - 4 United
Historical players: Barcelona: Cruyff, Maradona, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi; United: Charlton, Best, Law, Ronaldo.
Fans:
Facebook: Barcelona 102.7M - 73M United
Instagram: Barcelona 65.5M - 26.3M United
Twitter: Barcelona 29.1M - 18.8M United
Average attendance:
Barcelona 66k - 75k United
Revenue:
Barcelona 690.4M - 666M United (both values are in EUR)
Honors:
European Cups: Barcelona 5 - 3 United
League titles: Barcelona 25 - 20 United
Domestic Cups: Barcelona 30 - 12
Players:
Ballon D'Or winners: Barcelona 11 - 4 United
Historical players: Barcelona: Cruyff, Maradona, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi; United: Charlton, Best, Law, Ronaldo.
Fans:
Facebook: Barcelona 102.7M - 73M United
Instagram: Barcelona 65.5M - 26.3M United
Twitter: Barcelona 29.1M - 18.8M United
Average attendance:
Barcelona 66k - 75k United
Revenue:
Barcelona 690.4M - 666M United (both values are in EUR)
It isn't. But you are in RedCafe, of course some people will say that. Let the people have their opinions
About that list, no way PSG is bigger than Milan or Inter. PSG only has money, fans in France and no European glory, only domestic success in a mid-level league.
Any list that has Boca Juniors below Arsenal and Man City isn't worth reading.
Sure if you have Xavi and Iniesta on that list then Ronaldo, Rooney, Scholes, Giggs?
Also Social media numbers is a poor way to weigh up clubs. Barcelona was the most successful club through the social media years and in turn would obviously get the more ''likes'' from the new age of fans.
Also I don't think one is bigger than the other fyi.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21478857
According to this BBC report in 2013, Utd had 659 million fans worldwide. Social media is not the only way to measure fans. And if you've lived in Asia you'll know what I mean. You list Man Utd historical players and miss out on David Beckham, the first global football superstar. I don't know if you are old enough to remember the early 2000s but Beckham was as big a name as Messi or Ronaldo today and his popularity was off the charts, something which also made Man Utd a household name everywhere in the world. You've also missed the likes of Giggs, Cantona and Rooney.
Unless I'm mistaken Ronaldo only played one season for Barcelona (which was great season for him, but I don't think Barca won the league) and Maradona had 2 unremarkable ones, so I don't know how they become historical Barca legends. Out of those 11 Ballon D'or you mention, Messi alone has 5, which further reinforces my point regarding the Messi effect.
I'm not disputing Barca's current standing, I'm simply stating in a historical sense its a stretch to call them the 2nd biggest club in the world.
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I know it's a United forum but c'mon, both Barca and Real are bigger than us, no shame in admitting that.
Clearly that's to boost french clubs in the list, most notably PSG.
Does it? Who at PSG has won the World Cup apart from Mbappé? Maybe Aréola (don't know) or Kimpembe, but surely that's it (Buffon and Draxler did as non-Frenchmen I just realized, but still that's only a handful of players)?
If anything, it elates the standings of Real, Barça and Bayern since they still have quite a few '10 and '14 WC winners in their squad.
Too 20 would make a dirty super League..
I listed Ronaldo. Rooney, Scholes, Giggs have been more local level of players, they never did something extraordinary in World Cup/Euro or dominate UCL. Iniesta and Xavi were many years considered in top 5 in the world, Rooney maybe once or twice, Giggs and Scholes never.
BBC is an English broadcast, they are biased toward English. The fact that in all three biggest social networks Barcelona is way ahead of United, means that very likely they have more fans than us. While it is close to impossible to estimate accurately the number of fans a club have, social network following is better than just putting numbers without any justifications.
Beckham was a superstar, but nowhere as good as those I mentioned. Maybe 98-99 season he was one of the best players in the world, but that is it. Xavi and Iniesta will likely go down in top 30 or so of all time.
1st Man United
2nd Liverpool
The rest, up in the air.
Real Madrid most prestigious though. (Amongst players)
2nd Liverpool
The rest, up in the air.
Real Madrid most prestigious though. (Amongst players)
I think Real are the biggest club in the world, followed by United, Barca, Liverpool and Juventus respectively. That's just my opinion.
But since there is no clear metric with which to measure the size of a football club, all we have is our opinions.
Any italian fan or someone who knows his stuff can explain the mythical status of Torino please ? Because right now i feel hurt 
If you're talking about how big a football club is, you are also gauging how popular that club is. Beckham, in terms of footballing quality was nowhere near Xavi or Iniesta, but he was more popular than both of them combined. That makes him a "bigger" name than them, even though they may be greater players than Becks, but he was the bigger name. The same principle applies while judging the "biggest" club. You don't want to believe that BBC report fine, but believe me when I say that in Asia (I was born and bought up in India and have visited a fair amount of South East Asian countries) Man Utd is the biggest and most supported club and seeing how over half the world's population is Asian, its not a surprise that Man Utd have more followers than Barca.
Before the last 15 years no one would have listed Barca amongst the 5 biggest clubs in the world. They have had this great generation of players but that doesn't wipe out the past and make them the 2nd biggest club in the world, at least not for me. But I concur that everyone will have their own metrics of judging how big a club is and that's fair enough. I have just tried to explain how for me they are not as big as they are made out to be.
Torino won five consecutive titles in the 40s, before their dominance was ended by an air plane crash that killed everyone on board.Any italian fan or someone who knows his stuff can explain the mythical status of Torino please ? Because right now i feel hurt
That list is complete bollocks.
Also, United are unquestionably top dogs in England as far as popularity and it's most successful side. Barcelona are in Real Madrid's shadows.
How are Valencia not in there?
Mbappe, Areola, Kimpembe, Buffon & Draxler all won it, I mistakenly thought Rabiot was also in the French squad too but that's a decent amount of currently playing WC winners to boost their standings.
Of course it's very opinionated. I personally think Real is quite a clear leader and then there is not much of a gap between 2-6. Barca, us, Bayern, Juve, Liverpool are a tier above the rest, which is again, a personal opinion.
They’ve barely achieved anything domestically since the 1970s and didn’t win the European Cup even then.
In terms of former giants of German football, HSV are bigger in every way apart from current position.
I don't understand why you dismiss Barcelona's success just because it is more recent. It's not like with City who may have won more in recent years than you guys, but have won less historically. Barca's have won more recently as well as over the whole club history. Their success is dominated by the last 15 years, but if you take out a particular decade and a half from United's history as well, you end up on the same level again if not lower.
Seems pretty arbitrary to me.
A mix of the WC winners in squad criterion and 11th in mythical status. 11th, what a load of bollocks.
The ranking factors are of course arbitrary but that mythical status list is plain weird.
Only British people think United is bigger than Barcelona.
Oh ok
Thank you.And Asians, apparently!
I don't think it is an outrageous claim. I mean, they are 2nd and 3rd, so it's close enough. But I also think most metrics are in favour of Barcelona. Anyway, I had more problems with how the case for United was presented than the case itself.
It's a good list tbf, except the obvious bias towards French teams. Surprised they didn't include the "teams who Neymar and Mbappe played for" factor.
Juventus should be ahead of Liverpool though.
Barcelona earned in last decade or so to be ahead of us, I think we had the ooportunity to overtake them in those two finals but they were too strong.
Juventus should be ahead of Liverpool though.
Barcelona earned in last decade or so to be ahead of us, I think we had the ooportunity to overtake them in those two finals but they were too strong.
Hard to speak for Asia in general but 10 years ago United were miles ahead of the big Spanish clubs here in the east. Now it’s arguable that Madrid and Barcelona are more popular amongst the younger generations.And Asians, apparently!