Golden rays of sunlight warmed his face as he lounged in a beachside shack in Thailand. Christer Nordvik was on his honeymoon with his wife, Linda. It was the perfect tropical escape. But after a week, the sound of the seawaves had lost its charm, leaving Nordvik dreaming not of sunsets, but scorelines.
“I wanted to follow my local team SK Brann,” he recalls. “But it was impossible.”
It was 2004. Mobile phones were around, but the internet was patchy at best. Keeping up with live scores, especially from 5,000 miles away, was more fantasy than reality.
But for Nordvik, it was a challenge he was ready to accept.
After returning home to Bergen on Norway’s southwestern coast, he teamed up with his brother Tommy to create the first version of FotMob – now one of the world’s leading football platforms with more than 20 million monthly active users.
From live scores and stats to player ratings and personalized insights, FotMob has become a go-to for fans of the world’s most popular sport.
A father of four, Nordvik worked part-time on the app for nine years, spending his evenings and weekends coding.
During the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a shoutout from The New York Times, which called FotMob the go-to Android app for “simple scores and stats”, helped the platform welcome a flurry of new users.
Three years on from that, Nordvik decided to go full-time with his venture. But it wasn’t until 2022 that the app “really took off”, as the Norwegian describes.
“We went from nine million users to 15 million users,” he said. “There were a lot of reasons for it: Apple had launched their ‘Live Activities’, where the lock screen widget gave you scores without having to open the app.
“We were working with Apple at the time as part of the Beta program. They launched Live Activities at the same time as the World Cup in Qatar, and FotMob went viral on TikTok as the app to use during the tournament.
“Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, tweeted that the FotMob app is amazing for the World Cup. That was kind of a “wow” [moment].”
The bootstrapped company, run by a small team of 30, has notched over 100 million downloads.
From Niche To Mainstream
As the English Premier League returns in the upcoming week, FotMob has big plans for the 2025-26 season. For the first time, physical data collected by Opta, such as top speed and total distance covered, is available for every Premier League player, and fans can access it freely on FotMob.
“I think those things are what people care about, but it’s never been possible to find the numbers anywhere. You couldn’t find who was the fastest runner in the Premier League or who’s the fastest running center-back. But now you can,” Nordvik said.
“We have a huge belief that this season it will make its rounds on TikTok and Instagram. People will talk about FotMob a lot.”
Nordvik says FotMob aims to strike a balance between serving the so-called football nerds and the casual fan who checks in now and then.
One of the most popular metrics to emerge over the past decade is “expected goals,” or “xG” – a measure of how likely a shot is to result in a goal. Once considered niche, it has now become part of football conversations, both online and offline.
“We were the first app to introduce xG,” the FotMob CEO said. “At that time, we were a bit hesitant because I always thought that xG might be over the top.
“But then, suddenly, especially in the UK and here in Norway, people started talking about the xG. Journalists spoke about it, commentators used it during live matches, and I think Jose Mourinho and a couple of other coaches, as well, in the Premier League, started quoting xG numbers in interviews. So it kind of matured a lot over time.”
Women’s Football Rises In The Ranks
Owing to its global appeal, the Premier League is unsurprisingly the most-followed league on FotMob. But there also exists an interesting trend in some countries.
Women’s football is widely followed in countries such as England and Germany, two European powerhouses. The Lionesses’ triumphant run at the Women’s Euro 2025 was among the most-followed on FotMob.
“In July, I thought the FIFA Club World Cup would be among the most-visited matches on our app in the UK, but the two most popular matches were from the Women’s Euros: England vs Spain (the final) and England vs Italy (the semifinals),” he said.
Together, those two matches garnered a total of 2.3 million views. The Lionesses were the fifth-most followed team – behind England (men), Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal – in the UK.
“In the U.S., it was Vissel Kobe vs Barcelona, followed by PSG vs Real Madrid. England vs Spain in the Women’s Euros was fourth on the list, and Chelsea vs PSG was down in sixth place,” he added.
All Eyes On 2026 World Cup
A lot of FotMob’s planning these days is centered around the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, featuring 48 teams for the first time.
With the U.S. as its fastest-growing market, FotMob aims to tap into a new wave of fans, just as it did during the Qatar World Cup four years ago.
“We don’t have concrete plans at the moment, but we are hoping to get similar physical metrics – that the Premier League has just launched – for the World Cup,” Nordvik said.
“A lot of focus is on making the same thing we made in 2022, making it perfect for a casual fan coming in – just understanding and immediately knowing how to follow the World Cup in an easy, accessible way.
“I think often the main problem is between tailoring for the casual fan and the one who wants everything. So, we at FotMob, are kind of aiming at both, like expanding to have more features for the World Cup, but also tailoring it for a casual fan coming in for the first time.”