You can guess which teams came top.

Football fans in China love Arsenal, cite the English Premier League as their favourite division, but are more likely to root for Germany at the World Cup according to research carried out by Coventry University’s Centre for the International Business of Sport (CIBS).

In the biggest ever study of its kind, nearly 16,000 football fans from across China were surveyed online via one of the country’s most popular social media sites, and were asked to identify their favourite teams at club and national level, as well as their favourite league.

Arsenal edges Manchester United to top the list of most popular clubs amongst fans, the Gunners being selected by 3,785 respondents to United’s 3,210. Milan are the third most popular club in China (with 2,204 respondents) followed by Real Madrid (1,959 respondents) and Barcelona (1,930).

Germany comes out top of the national team favourites (3,118), followed by Italy (2,488) and Spain (2,418). Despite having the two most popular clubs, England is only the fourth most popular national team with 2,393 respondents. China’s favourite South American national teams are Argentina (1,372) and Brazil (1,120).

The English Premier League is overwhelmingly the favourite national division amongst the Chinese fans, coming in way ahead of its nearest global rivals with 7,697 respondents (almost 50 per cent). Spain’s La Liga is second (3,910 respondents) and Italy’s Serie A ranks in third place (3,614). Germany’s Bundesliga, however, appears to have some way to go to win the hearts of Chinese fans, receiving 318 votes by respondents.

The unique survey of Chinese football fans’ league and team preferences is part of an ongoing CIBS research project examining the preferences and behaviours of overseas football fans. Other countries in which this research has been undertaken include South Korea, Japan, and the United States.

The latest survey was undertaken between September and November 2013, and drew a total of 15,586 responses via China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging platform.

CIBS researcher Jiajia Song, who conducted the research, believes the study provides groundbreaking new insight into Chinese football fans’ support for leagues and teams – particularly at a national level.

Song said: “Fans are more likely to support a club team when players from their favourite national squad regularly make the starting line-up. This means players like Mesut Özil and Lukas Podalski, both German international players and players for the English Premier League’s Arsenal, are likely to fulfil an important commercial and marketing role for club, country and league.”

Professor Simon Chadwick, director of CIBS, believes the research makes an important new contribution to understanding fandom in overseas markets. “Previous research of this nature has tended to focus solely on clubs, whereas in this study we explore national team and league fandom too.

“We report several new and significant observations, for instance ‘sense of pride’ is an important variable in national team support. Nearly 11,000 respondents identify this as being an important component of their fandom, and over 11,000 fans stressed that they are die-hard supporters of their current favourite national team.”

The CIBS team at Coventry University also noted the importance to Chinese fans of being able to identify, engage and communicate with other fans who share their team and league preference – nearly 13,000 respondents identified social media as being an important way of bringing fans together.

Chadwick added: “A sense of fraternity is very important to Chinese fans, and the rapid growth of social media enables them to gather together and discuss all aspects of ‘their’ team or league.”

Song concluded: “We are pleased with the outcomes of this study, and we believe our work can make a significant contribution to understanding football fandom in China and China as a country.”