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Robin van Persie beats Steven Gerrard, Mesut Ozil and Eden Hazard to be the Premier League's top shirt seller

Manchester United striker sold more shirts than any other player last season

Tom Sheen
Tuesday 12 August 2014 15:51 BST
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Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez, Mesut Ozil and Eden Hazard are among the Premier League's best sellers
Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez, Mesut Ozil and Eden Hazard are among the Premier League's best sellers (Getty Images)

Robin van Persie can claim to be the most popular player in the Premier League after seeing his shirt top the bestsellers list for the second year in a row.

Van Persie is one of four Manchester United players in the top 10, along with Wayne Rooney at No 6, Juan Mata at No 8 and Shinji Kagawa, who is hugely popular in the Far East, at No 9.

The rankings, revealed in the Premier League Season Review 2013-14, is based on the worldwide sale of shirts and compiled by Sporting iD.

Thanks to Liverpool’s surprise title charge last season, Reds skipper is up to No 2 on the list – he wasn’t on the list a year earlier – while departed striker Luis Suarez is third.

Mesut Ozil is the only new arrival to the Premier League to crack the top 10, and is the only Arsenal player on the list – in 2012-13 there were three members of Arsenal’s squad, but Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Santi Cazorla have all dropped out.

Eden Hazard at No 4 and Frank Lampard, now of Manchester City, at No 10 are the two Chelsea players on the list, while Sergio Aguero is the only entrant from the Champions. The Argentine striker is the seventh biggest seller.

After a remarkable season that went to the wire, players such as Van Persie, Suarez, Hazard and Gerrard lit up the league and captivated Premier League fans across the world,” Robert Thayne, Sporting iD’s Global License Director, said.

Robin van Persie is again the biggest shirt seller in the Premier League (Getty Images)

“Supporters are clearly showing their loyalty to these players and their clubs by personalising shirts with official Premier League player names, numbers and sleeve badges”.

The review also looked at the number of fans globally who tuned into the Premier League, stating that 1.163bn fans from 650m homes in 175 countries follow England’s top flight.

Of those, Asia & Oceania can claim to have the biggest fan base, with 1.04bn viewers and 457m supporters; Europe has 190m viewers and 84m supporters.

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