Last week, Twitter reportedly deleted up to 6% of all the accounts on its platform in what became known as the Twitter Cull.

The social media platform went after locked accounts: essentially suspicious accounts which appeared to post high numbers of unprompted replies, forcing the ‘owners’ of the accounts to verify themselves before the account was unlocked.

As a result, plenty of accounts saw their follower numbers dip slightly as accounts were taken off the platform.

That led us to wonder whether sport saw much of a change, especially when it came to the biggest and most visible football accounts which claim some massive numbers. The most followed teams and players count tens of millions of followers – so did many of them lose out? Or have they continued to grow thanks to World Cup (or transfer window) hype?

It’s unclear whether this is all thanks to the Twitter Cull or whether there are other forces at play here too. Most of the top ten clubs have actually lost a little bit of a following since June 1st, when IQUII Sport published their last review of the numbers just after the end of the European club season, but not a whole lot.

Since then, many have lost a very small number of Twitter followers, and much less than the 6% you might have expected when the headline numbers of the Cull were reported. Apart from Juventus and Cristiano Ronaldo, that is, who both saw increases in their following, and that’s despite probably losing some deleted followers.

While no one changed places in the hierarchy, Real Madrid, who were on 30.7m Twitter followers on their main Spanish language account back in June, are now on 30.6m perhaps losing some because the departure of Ronaldo. Those accounts may well have followed CR7 to the Turin club.

???? Stepping into #CR7DAY like ???? #CR7JUVE @Cristiano pic.twitter.com/7WzAz4lwDd

— JuventusFC (@juventusfcen) July 16, 2018

To most accounts that drop would be significant, but given the huge numbers these clubs have already accrued in terms of followers, it’s fairly negligible. Indeed, in football these things can change quickly as one event can blow all others out of the water. Especially during a transfer window.

Real Madrid lost arguably the biggest star in world football (Lionel Messi’s pretty good too: don’t @ me), and it wouldn’t be unprecedented for them to lose followers – after selling Javier Hernandez to West Ham last summer, Bayer Leverkusen lost followers who may well have hit the unfollow button as a direct result of that transfer.

On the other hand, West Ham certainly gained a lot of followers from North America, which suggests that the transfer had a direct impact on their social media following. For Juventus, that might well have been the case this month as they are the only club in the top ten most-followed clubs to actively gain numbers – which is surely down to their latest signing.

Barcelona are still in second despite dropping off the most of the top ten – down from 29.2m on June 1st to 28.8m on July 16th (the time of publication).

If clubs mostly lost minimal following though, it was a different story for most players.

Lovely moments!???????? pic.twitter.com/oliOiB2xWe

— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) July 12, 2018

That transfer may have been a factor for Cristiano Ronaldo, who grew his following from 73.4 to 73.5m in the month of June and the first half of July. His performances in the World Cup – and in particular his hat trick against Spain in Portugal’s opening game – may have been a factor, too.

Neymar gained even more followers, taking him well past the 40m mark from 39.8m at the end of the club season.

Other, like Andres Iniesta and Mesut Ozil saw little change in their headline numbers despite disappointing World Cups and, indeed, the Cull.

Perhaps the Twitter Cull didn’t hit football as much as some thought it might, and there’s certainly no stand-out loser. But what we have seen is that despite most clubs losing some numbers, there’s still growth to be had even on a platform like Twitter: but it helps if you spend €100m to buy Cristiano Ronaldo.