UK Ranks Third Globally for World Cup Readership as Fans Flock to Tournament Coverage
by on 10th Jun 2026 in News
New analysis from Taboola, a global leader in delivering performance at scale for advertisers, has revealed that British football fans are the third most engaged audience globally ahead of this year’s World Cup.
With England and Scotland having qualified for this summer’s tournament, readership data from Taboola’s network of publisher partners reveals that news articles around the World Cup generated 8.8 million page views in the UK over the past 90 days, behind only the United States (11 million page views) and India (9.7 million page views).
The interest in the UK has outpaced that in other tournament favourite countries, including Brazil (8.5m page views), France (6.4m page views), Spain (1.5m page views) and Germany (524k page views).
UK readership interest surged on the day that England’s World Cup squad was announced, generating more than 1.8m page views in a single day.
Despite the growing excitement surrounding England and Scotland’s World Cup campaigns, Premier league club Arsenal generated more than 27 million page views during the same 90-day period, as The Gunners won a tense Premier League run in and reached the Champions League final.
Arsenal-related articles attracted 1.2 million page views on the day of the Champions League final alone, and more than 650,000 page views during the next day’s trophy parade through London.
England readership XI
England’s players in particular have generated hundreds of thousands - and in some cases millions - of article page views over the last 90 days, including those controversially not selected for the squad. England’s "most read about" XI is:
Goalkeeper - Jordan Pickford, 503k page views
Defender - Reece James, 119k page views
Defender - Nico O’Reilly, 149k page views
Defender - John Stones, 276k page views
Defender - Harry Maguire, 1.2m page views
Midfielder - Bukayo Saka, 384k page views
Midfielder - Anthony Gordeon, 1.4m page views
Midfielder - Cole Palmer, 1.4m page views
Midfielder - Declan Rice, 970k page views
Midfielder - Elliot Anderson, 900k page views
Forward - Marcus Rashford, 3.2m page views
Dave Struzzi, communications lead at Taboola, said: "Our readership data reinforces how British audiences remain among the most passionate football fans anywhere in the world, consuming more content around squad selection, player form and chances of success than any of the other tournament favourites."
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