AIPS ASIA News:

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) today underlined its commitment to establishing a deeper connection with fervent supporters of Asian football during the second meeting of the AFC Media & Communications Committee for the 2023-2027 term.

Updates on current and upcoming fan engagement initiatives were provided to the Committee at the virtual meeting, which was helmed by Chairperson Ganbaatar Amgalanbaatar.

The Committee reflected on the eye-catching digital impression numbers that were drawn from the competitions that were held over the past year.

This was spearheaded by the astonishing growth from the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023™, which recorded a staggering 7.9 billion impressions – a 791% increase from 2019 – on the AFC’s digital platforms. Elsewhere, there was a 321% growth for the AFC U17 Women’s Asian Cup™ Indonesia 2024, 266% for the AFC U23 Asian Cup Qatar 2024™, 72% for the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup™ Uzbekistan 2024 and 22.3% for the AFC Futsal Asian Cup™ Thailand 2024.

Overall, video views across all digital platforms rose to 1.27bn for 2024 – a 164% year-on-year improvement – and total followers stood at 30.6 million, a 20% increase. In terms of the website metrics, there was a 258% year-on-year increase to 48.1m page views, accompanied by a 228% increase to 13.1m users.

Building on this strong momentum, the Committee was updated on the new efforts being implemented in tandem with the revamped club competitions for the 2024/25 season – the AFC Champions League Elite™, AFC Women’s Champions League™, AFC Champions League Two™ and AFC Challenge League™ – that kicked off earlier this month.

These include a reconfiguration of the AFC website, which continues to serve as the main source of information for all of the Confederation’s competitions.

Additionally, Fantasy Football and Match Predictor elements have been introduced to passionate fans for the AFC Champions League Elite™, while digital strategies are in place to provide comprehensive coverage of the thrilling AFC Asian Qualifiers™ – Road to 26 as Asia’s national teams battle to seal their berths at the next FIFA World Cup.

These initiatives will further boost the data collection of the AFC’s customer relationship management (CRM) system, which was launched last year to gather detailed knowledge of Asian football fans’ preferences. Using the data, tailormade strategies for marketing, product and content development have been refined to reach more fans in Asia and beyond.

It was also noted that the landmark AFC LIVE mobile application continues to gain popularity among Asian football fans, having registered over 280,000 downloads since its launch in 2023. Available in English and Arabic on both Apple and Android devices, the app serves as the mobile hub of the latest AFC news and provides live scores for major National Team and Club Competitions and all domestic leagues in Asia. Gamification features, such as Fantasy Football, Match Predictor and Trivia Quizzes further enhance its appeal.

Behind the scenes, the AFC’s digitisation efforts continue apace, having commenced earlier this year. Enhancing the Confederation’s media archive management by digitally archiving its wealth of photos and video footage, it will enable better commercialisation of these assets.

Over the course of the meeting, relevant reports from the areas of corporate communications, audiovisual and photography were also provided to the Committee.

Courtesy AFC