popularity:

According to a survey conducted by FIFA in the year 2006,2 about 270 million people worldwide are actively involved in football, including players, referees and officials. Of these, 265 million regularly play football professionally, semi-professional or amateur, considering both men, women, youth and children. This represents about 4% of the world population. The confederation with the highest percentage of people actively involved with soccer is CONCACAF, with 8.53% of the population. Its counterpart occurs in the zone of the AFC, where the percentage is only 2.22%. UEFA has a shareholding of 7.59%; CONMEBOL 7.47%; OFC of 4.68%; and the African Football Confederation 5.16%. There are more than 1.7 million computers worldwide and approximately 301 000 clubes.31

The country with the most players who play regularly (except children) is China, which has 26.1 million players. Follow: United States (24.4 million), India (20.5), Germany (16.3), Brazil (13.1), Colombia (9.2) and Mexico (8.4). Furthermore, the federations with fewer regular players (except children) is Montserrat, with only 300 players, the British Virgin Islands (658), Anguilla (760) and Turks and Caicos (950).