Sport News Africa (SNA), the sports news platform launched a few months ago, has just published a groundbreaking and comprehensive study on "The 100 most influential African athletes on Twitter."
The study was conducted with Smart Data Power, which uses the official Twitter API to collect, enrich, and analyze this data.
Mohamed Salah is by far in first place, with a total of 13.8 million followers. He is followed by South African AB Villers (cricket) and another Egyptian, Mohamed Elneny (soccer).
In French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, Didier Drogba, in 7th place, tops the list of personalities with 2.1 million followers. Basketball player Joel Emblid and soccer player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyong complete the top three athletes from French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa.
On the women's side, the top three are South African athlete Caster Semenya, followed by Nigerian soccer player Asisat Oshoalo and Egyptian swimmer Farida Osman.
Soccer is by far the most represented sport among influential athletes, followed by cricket and rugby, two very popular sports in South Africa, which, with 35% of the number of influential athletes, outstrips Egypt and Nigeria, which also have many committed athletes. Côte d'Ivoire ranks fourth among the 21 countries represented in the Top 100.
The study also highlights the growing commitment of some of the continent's most popular athletes. In addition to being sponsored by brands or launching their own businesses, 14% of the athletes in the ranking are involved in activism or humanitarian work, such as Cameroonian footballer Samuel Eto'o — ranked 11th, who launched the Samuel Eto'o Foundation in 2006 and runs the Fundesport project for youth development through sport in Cameroon and Gabon — or Senegalese basketball player Gorgui Dieng — ranked 66th, who works through his foundation to promote health programs in Senegal.
See the rest of the ranking on the SNA website
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