January 6 – The Asian Champions League final between Iranian giants Persepolis and South Korea’s Ulsan Hyundai provided a huge boost to the AFC’s social media channels and its Farsi language channels.
It also demonstrated the huge and passionate following football has in Iran and its positive potential within the wider football world.
With no broadcast deal in Iran due to the economic sanctions against the country, the AFC broadcast the final live from Doha, Qatar, on December 19 on its Instagram channel (Farsi).
The result was a huge increase in followers from 200,000 to more than 2.9 million new followers – a record in terms of short term growth driven by a sports event for the social media platform.
For the AFC it again reinforces the explosive commercial and footballing potential of another ‘sleeping’ giant in its region.
The Instagram broadcast generated more than 145 million interactions.
While the number of Instagram followers has since dipped to 2.2 million, the engagement with the Farsi feed has remained impressive with two subsequent posts each generating more than 2 million interactions.
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