Barça and eight other First Division clubs have suffered the effects of LGTBI-phobia on the networks. A post on Instagram to claim the rights of the LGTBIQ community has caused a massive reaction among many fans. In the case of Barça, a total of 440,000 people have stopped following the Barça team’s account as a result of that publication on social networks. Of the ten clubs that published a post to claim their rights, nine lost followers.
The journalist David Saura, ex-responsible for Barça’s digital content and co-founder of Xerpa Studio together with Toni Ruiz, was the one who noticed this information and reported it through social networks. The drastic drop in the number of followers came in just 48 hours, after posting a photo with the rainbow flag at the Joan Gamper Sports City. The post has so far received more than 800,000 likes, but also more than 250,000 comments, many of them critical of the post.
Barça is clearly the club that has lost the most followers, despite the fact that it is also the one that has the most (122 million). The data also shows how the Barca account went from gaining an average of 30,000 followers per day to losing 306,000. The following day, the effects of the publication were still noticeable and Barça lost 133,000 more followers: 440,000 in total.
Among the other nine teams that made a similar publication, only Las Palmas did not lose followers, but rather gained 67. Valencia (-2,299), Athletic (-1,218), Real Sociedad (-605), Osasuna (-344), Getafe (-168), Celta (-152) and Mallorca (-73) lost support. As the journalist David Saura explains, “the world of football and tolerance for the LGBT community still have a long way to go.”
