text: 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.'
target: Man United and Man City have over 8million followers each on Weibo .
  Both clubs have more followers on the Chinese website than Twitter .
  Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao are the third most followed club .
  Barcelona are fourth, but Real Madrid are down in 18th place .
  Five Premier League clubs feature in the top 12 on Weibo .
  Interactive map on Twitter followers around the world .