The most widely-supported football club

[RuiCosta_10]

... is Sport Lisboa e Benfica, currently with something around 160.000 paid-up members

i was so proud that i wanted to share this great achievment with everybody, so everybody knows how big we are, pretty impressive for a club of such a small country, that's passion

we just passed Manchester United that is now the second and Barcelona that is now the third if i'm not mistaken.

 

[Tom]

I dont understand how United arent top though, maybe the Chinese dont sign up as 'paid-up' members.

 

[RuiCosta_10]

yep, this is only based on paid-up members, not on supporters/fans...

i believe we have about 16 Million fans all over the world, United has probably more

 

[SCP19O6]

i believe we have about 16 Million fans all over the world, United has probably more

OMG, this one made me laugh!
Benfica fans are so inebriated by this, I think some of them even masturbate over it!
Of course, Manchester United has more fans than Benfica, just like Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Flamengo, Corinthians, or any other major club in Europe or South America; probably unknown clubs from China or India have more fans than that (btw, the number that LFV said, with no scientific basis, was 14 not 16).
Of course it's nice to have Benfica's name in the Guinness book, and I congratulate you for that, but, please, keep things in perpesctive.

 

[ShearerM4]

... but, please, keep things in perpesctive.

Which is exactly what he did

This IS quite an achievement to be honest! Because it isn't easy to get people to pay a membership fee especially for a football club where things have ups and downs. I know it hasn't entered my mind to pay NUFC to become a member of anything, if they demanded it, they could go f**k themselves.

 

[Tiago_10]

SCP1906 you clearly have unresolved issues.. :boohoo:

What's so wrong with being proud of your club for such achievement? Because that's exactly what Rui said. He said he was proud of his club for achieving this..

I honestly don't understand your paranoia.

 

[RuiCosta_10]

OMG, this one made me laugh!
Benfica fans are so inebriated by this, I think some of them even masturbate over it!
Of course, Manchester United has more fans than Benfica, just like Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Flamengo, Corinthians, or any other major club in Europe or South America; probably unknown clubs from China or India have more fans than that (btw, the number that LFV said, with no scientific basis, was 14 not 16).
Of course it's nice to have Benfica's name in the Guinness book, and I congratulate you for that, but, please, keep things in perpesctive.

you gotta take that stick out of your ass

like i said, United probably has more fans (oh sorry for using the word probably instead of definitely)

oh, and sorry for saying 16 instead of 14(honest mistake), what's wrong with you?

if you don't like it, it's simple, don't read. kthksbye

 

[Vedran-10]

Great achievement, no doubt.

Never thought Benfica would have 160,000 members.

We are growing in that aspect, too. I hope we surpass Man Utd.

 

[SCP19O6]

SCP1906 you clearly have unresolved issues.. :boohoo:

What's so wrong with being proud of your club for such achievement? Because that's exactly what Rui said. He said he was proud of his club for achieving this..

I honestly don't understand your paranoia.

There's nothing wrong with that; I already congratulated you, that's a nice achievement, no doubt about it.
I just don't think it's correct to extrapolate the fact of having more paid-up members to the fact of having more supporters worldwide, like it's said in the title of the thread; that's why I said "keep things in perspective"!

 

[bjmenge]

Congrats, it is a nice achievement.

So, what exactly does it mean to be a "paid-up" member? Is it like being a shareholder, owning stock in the club, or just being part of a fan club?

 

[Jambo Den]

It's still a hell of a lot of memberships though.

Do Hearts count as members, seeing as we get all your cast-off players? How about throwing us over some No Name Boys or Diabos?

 

[Hendrik]

How come they can't fill their stadium on a weekly basis?

Manchester United 150,000
Barcelona 130,000
Bayern 120,000
Porto 110,000
Arsenal 100,000
Sporting 90,000
Ajax 80,000
Olympiakos 76,540
Real Madrid 71,569
Liverpool 62,000
Chelsea 60,000

 

[Virgo]

well hard to say, there's really not the culture of going to football weekly over here.

That allied with the fact that most of the games are very late, most at 21.00 and some on Sunday and Monday nights, makes it really hard for people that work to drag themselves to the stadium to see a game and get home past bed time.

Most people prefer to stay at home, on the sofa under a blanket and watch it on TV.

 

[Filipower]

congratulations benfica.









haha, i said it

 

[Virgo]

Congrats, it is a nice achievement.

So, what exactly does it mean to be a "paid-up" member? Is it like being a shareholder, owning stock in the club, or just being part of a fan club?

nah, it's a membership card like in any other club you join outside football, you pay a monthly fee which in our case is 12€ and get discounts of like 50% in tickets, merchandise and other sports.

May not seem much but for a club outside of Italy/Spain/England/Germany where TV revenues are much much lower, multiply that by 13months (yes 13) and 160.000 members and it's a heap of money, vital for our survival and to avoid having to sell our best players year after year to avoid going bankrupt, roughly over 25M€

 

[pasion1]

yep, this is only based on paid-up members, not on supporters/fans...

i believe we have about 16 Million fans all over the world, United has probably more

And Corinthians have more fans than 3X the population of Portugal. lol

PS- Congrats

 

[CapaJr]

Congrats Benfica !

 

[d3adly]

congrats benfica, great achievement