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Arsenal striker Gyokeres proud as shirt sales dwarf Sweden team-mates at World Cup

ยทBy Paul Lindisfarne
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Arsenal striker Gyokeres proud as shirt sales dwarf Sweden team-mates at World Cup

Arsenal/X.com

Viktor Gyokeres is responsible for more replica shirt sales than all of his Sweden team-mates combined ahead of the World Cup, according to the Swedish football federation.

The Arsenal striker's national team jersey is by far the most popular among Swedish supporters this summer.

Stefan Abelstedt, head of commercial revenue at the Swedish Football Association, confirmed the scale of Gyokeres' commercial pull.

"Gyokeres is clearly the biggest," Abelstedt said.

He explained that sales of the striker's shirt match the combined total of every other Sweden player's shirt sales.

"He sells as much as all the others combined."

According to Abelstedt, interest in the Gyokeres shirt surged at a specific moment in Sweden's campaign.

"The big sales boom around him came when we qualified for the World Cup," he said.

Gyokeres, 27, has established himself as one of Europe's most prolific strikers since his move to Arsenal, scoring regularly in the Premier League and Champions League during his first season at the club.

The striker said he was pleased by the level of interest in his shirt among Swedish fans.

"Of course it feels fantastic," Gyokeres said. "That people want to buy the Swedish national team shirt with my name on the back is very flattering."

The Swedish federation's figures placed four other players in the top five for shirt sales.

Tottenham midfielder Lucas Bergvall sits second on the list, with Gustav Lundgren, Alexander Isak and Anthony Elanga completing the top five.

Isak's continued presence on the list comes despite his high-profile move from Newcastle United to Liverpool last summer, a transfer that drew significant attention in England.

Sweden begin their World Cup campaign on Monday, with kick-off at 4am Danish time.

For a federation that had gone through lengthy spells without major tournament qualification in recent years, the commercial impact of a single player reaching the heights Gyokeres has at club level appears to have reshaped what Swedish fans want to wear this summer.

Whether that translates into results on the pitch will become clear once the tournament gets under way, but off it, Gyokeres has already proven to be Sweden's biggest draw by a distance.