The AFC U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 reached new milestones in engaging football fans, with the AFC’s social media channels witnessing staggering impressions of nearly 340 million – an increase of 193.8% from the fourth edition in Thailand two years ago.
As underlined in the AFC’s Vision and Mission, effective utilisation of social media to further excite football fans in the continent and beyond is seen as critical to growing the Asian game.
Asia’s top 16 teams competed for 19 days across 32 matches in the cities of Tashkent and Qarshi, with Saudi Arabia eventually becoming the fifth team in as many editions to clinch the coveted crown after the West Asians defeated hosts Uzbekistan 2-0 in a captivating decider.
The biggest increase was observed through the highly entertaining video content which received 46.9 million views on the AFC’s digital platforms, an astonishing rise of 1,066% from the 2020 edition, while the newly launched AFC TikTok account also garnered 9.3 million views with close to a million engagements.
The AFC’s Twitter account generated the highest improvement in impressions with a 217% increase from 2020 to 33 million in Uzbekistan, followed by Instagram, which received 115.65 million impressions or an increase of 119% while the AFC’s Facebook impressions rose by 80% to nearly 110 million.
At the same time, engagement on the AFC’s social media channels grew by 141.2% from 7.3 million in 2020 to a commendable 17.68 million in 2022 thanks to the multi-lingual approach through the AFC’s language-based platforms in English, Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Thai and Vietnamese.
The AFC’s Facebook account saw the highest uptake with nearly 10 million engagements, 315% higher than the last edition, with the Confederation’s Twitter account increasing by 84% to 1.6 million engagements while Instagram rose 61% to 6 million engagements.
On the pitch, the Continent’s attacking prowess was also palpable with a total of 81 goals scored across the 32 matches, averaging approximately 2.53 goal per match, as the young Green Falcons became the first side in the tournament’s history to maintain an unblemished defensive record across all six matches in their impressive march to the title.
The tournament also saw spectator attendance records rewritten on several occasions, with 28,670 fans gathering at the Pakhtakor Stadium when hosts Uzbekistan opened their campaign against Turkmenistan before a notable 32,268 supporters attended the thrilling final between the host nation and Saudi Arabia.
