Now in its ninth year, the Red Card Report is published by digital sports agency Mailman and has grown in recent years as more clubs target the Chinese market.

With 80 European teams ranked for their following and engagement over a number of Chinese social media platforms, this was the largest year yet for clubs active in China.

The top five were led by Spanish champions Barcelona ahead of Real Madrid, followed by Chelsea and Manchester City. Manchester United and Ronaldo’s Juventus were tied for fifth place. Bayern Munich and Liverpool were tied for seventh.

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Ronaldo led the players, with PSG’s Neymar in second ahead of Barcelona’s Leo Messi. The Brazilian’s success came largely for his engagement and following on video platform Douyin.

For the leagues, the English Premier League was well ahead of Spain’s La Liga and the German Bundesliga.

This year’s report was expanded again to include a number of new categories, such as the “Best use of influencers” award that Manchester United took for working with mega celebrity Lu Han, the former boy band star who has 61.2 million Weibo followers.

That is just one of the ways clubs are trying to attract Chinese fans, with Barcelona board member Didac Lee highlighting the challenge in his award acceptance speech.

“Our challenge is to create content for China that is bespoke to the ever-evolving digital landscape, culture and habits of this market and we’re proud to be recognised for outstanding fan growth and engagement.”

Barcelona came out tops because they had the highest engagement and total impressions on Weibo, while also being most engaged on the ever-popular Douyin video app.

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Video is key to growth in China and PSG led the way in 2019. The French champions topped the most-viewed football club videos on Douyin with their most popular video getting 108 million views.

Their video of players was made on their 13-day China tour, the longest tour yet by any club. In total, 12 clubs took part in China tours during 2019. The Premier League Asia Trophy returned to China, bringing Wolves, Newcastle United, West Ham United and champions Manchester City.

Tottenham Hotspur also returned for the first time in a decade, while Juventus were another of the big names that travelled.

Notably, none of Arsenal, Liverpool or Bayern Munich – who all dropped in the club rankings – toured China last year.

China striker Wu Lei helped his club Espanyol jump up the rankings. The Spanish side jumped 27 places to 14th thanks to increased interest from Chinese sponsors and fans, proving again the importance of Chinese players.

Wang Shuang was another local winner, becoming PSG’s most-engaged player when at the club’s women’s side, ahead of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. Naturalised Beijing Guoan and China midfielder Nico Yennaris, also known, as Li Ke, was another to perform strongly.

While Yennaris has made the adjustment to China, the report made reference to the difficulties encountered by the NBA and Arsenal this year, where tweets had offended Chinese fans.

“We saw players and coaches from all sports having to become accountable for themselves online as China’s netizens assert more influence on the success of a business in China.”

Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil’s tweet about Xinjiang may have damaged the club’s standing, it certainly did for the former fan favourite’s personal standing. The club distanced themselves from the player to placate fans in China.

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The report expects this trend to continue into 2020.

“Following a series of high-profile incidents in 2019, brands will now have to either play by China’s rules or give up on this market. In an Olympic year, there is no middle ground.

“To be successful you must understand and comply with the local environment and the fans’ patriotism.”