The relationship between technical performance and popularity of football players: an example of the Saudi Pro League

Introduction. The technical performance of players isremarkable in sports science. Studies regarding the tie betweentechnical performance and popularity are scarce. In additionto this, the Saudi Pro League calls attention to their hugeinvestments in the football industry. In particular, forwardplayers are the high spot of this investment. Aim of Study. Thisstudy includes two main purposes. First, the study aims toevaluate the technical performance of football players. Second,it aims to investigate the relationship between their popularityand technical performance. Material and Methods. The sampleof the study consisted of 50 forward players who competed inthe Saudi Pro League during the season of 2023/2024. Data forthe study were collected from Transfermarkt, the official websiteof the Saudi Pro League, Google Trends, and Instagram. In thefirst phase of the study, the complex proportional assessment(COPRAS) method, a technique applied in multiple-criteriadecision analysis (MCDA), was used to analyze the data. For thispurpose, the criteria (number of assists, goals, passes, shots, andtouches) were established and weighted through the stepwiseweight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA). In the second phaseof the study, Spearman correlation analysis was used to test therelationship between technical performance and popularity.Results. The findings of the study showed that CristianoRonaldo, Riyad Mahrez, and Aleksandar Mitrović were thetop 3 performers. Additionally, there is a correlation betweentechnical performance, Instagram followers, Google Web index,and YouTube index. Conclusions. This study demonstrates thatthe variables of assists, goals, passes, shots, and touches are validto evaluate the technical performance of forward players, on thecondition that they are weighted appropriately by the experts.The combination of the COPRAS ranking technique with theSWARA weighting technique provides consistent results withprevious studies. There is a significant relationship between thetechnical performance of players and their popularity.