Liverpool ‘could have 1 billion fans’ – LFC chairman makes astonishing claim

Liverpool chairman Tom Werner has raised eyebrows by claiming the Reds could have “as many as a billion” fans around the world.

Just over 8 billion people currently reside on Earth.

Liverpool and Fenway Sports Group chairman Werner thinks nearly one in eight of those 8 billion follow Liverpool.

He told the Times: “We are very aware of the global power of Liverpool. The club’s reach around the world is by far the strongest in the Premier League.

“We’re the only Premier League club to surpass 500 million views on television [by March 2025 from August last season].

“Last season on social media we generated 1.7 billion engagements. That’s not unique engagements, but it’s still a huge number.

“Many Americans still don’t appreciate the global power of football. But we think there could now be as many as a billion people around the world who follow Liverpool.

“There is a special connection with the fans. You feel it at the games at Anfield, when they start to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone. It’s deep and emotional.”

While social media isn’t a foolproof way of determining a club’s global fanbase, it is likely the best statistic we have to determine a club’s reach and popularity.

The 1.7 billion engagements cited by Werner was 45 percent higher the second-most-engaged club in the Premier League during the same period.

The latest broadcast figures up until March 2025 from Nielsen show that Liverpool are still the most-watched Premier League club globally with 504 million cumulative viewers.

Liverpool have always retained their presence as a massive club, even when the team’s on-field fortunes were taking a dip.

Now, with Jurgen Klopp having taken the Reds back to the top of the game and Arne Slot continuing his legacy, the club are dominating the football landscape, with only Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man United comparable in terms of fanbase.

“At Liverpool I’d like to give a lot of credit to Mike Gordon (FSG president) because we’ve enormously benefited from his wisdom,” Werner added.

“We have an awesome chief executive in Billy Hogan. I don’t want to diminish some of our early mistakes, but identifying Jurgen Klopp as our next manager was transformational.

“And then Jurgen had the opportunity to work with Michael Edwards (CEO of football).

“So when he stepped aside — and we were disappointed, obviously, but understood because it’s such a gruelling job — we had all the confidence in the world that Jürgen’s decision would be the right one for him and eventually the club as well.

“Arne Slot was their first choice, and it really came from the homework of Richard Hughes (sporting director) and Michael. It wasn’t an obvious first choice. But if you surround yourself with good talent, you’ll be successful.”

The day Liverpool won their 20th league title in April was the club’s most engaged day on social media, with more than 60.7 million engagements in 24 hours.

Their Premier League triumph was also the most-engaged league title trophy lift in Europe – more than the winners of La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A and the Bundesliga.

Werner’s remarks of nearly a billion ‘followers’ are likely well wide of the mark – there certainly aren’t that many real ‘supporters’ – but for his estimations to have reached that level, it shows Liverpool are well and truly back and competing at the top table.

What is almost undoubted is that Liverpool have the most proper, non-passive fans in the country – you need only look back to the parade for that, when fans flocked from across the world for a glimpse of their team.