Madrid take El Clasico Facebook crown

On Saturday, Real Madrid set a Facebook milestone in edging out bitter rivals Barcelona to become the first football club with 100 million likes on the social media platform.

This left Barcelona eating their dust - with a total of 99.8 million - and came despite the Catalan club sending out private messages imploring their supporters to help them reach the target first.

Last year across all social media platforms, Real Madrid was the fastest growing sports brand in the world, generating a whopping 1.6 billion video views.

No sporting organisation in the world can boast such totals.

Jose Angel Sanchez, the club's general director, said this showed the "incredible worldwide audience" that the club now boasts.

"We will work to keep consolidating our leadership in the social media sphere," he said.

"We have a fantastic relationship with Facebook and its strategic direction is helping us build a powerful and committed audience."