Introduction:
The technical performance of players is remarkable in sports science. Studies regarding the tie between technical performance and popularity are scarce. In addition to this, the Saudi Pro League calls attention to their huge investments in the football industry. In particular, forward players are the high spot of this investment.

Aim of the study:
This study includes two main purposes. First, the study aims to evaluate the technical performance of football players. Second, it aims to investigate the relationship between their popularity and technical performance.

Material and methods:
The sample of the study consisted of 50 forward players who competed in the Saudi Pro League during the season of 2023/2024. Data for the study were collected from Transfermarkt, the official website of the Saudi Pro League, Google Trends, and Instagram. In the first phase of the study, the complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) method, a technique applied in multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), was used to analyze the data. For this purpose, the criteria (number of assists, goals, passes, shots, and touches) were established and weighted through the stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA). In the second phase of the study, Spearman correlation analysis was used to test the relationship between technical performance and popularity

Results:
The findings of the study showed that Cristiano Ronaldo, Riyad Mahrez, and Aleksandar Mitrović were the top 3 performers. Additionally, there is a correlation between technical performance, Instagram followers, Google Web index, and YouTube index.

Conclusions:
This study demonstrates that the variables of assists, goals, passes, shots, and touches are valid to evaluate the technical performance of forward players, on the condition that they are weighted appropriately by the experts. The combination of the COPRAS ranking technique with the SWARA weighting technique provides consistent results with previous studies. There is a significant relationship between the technical performance of players and their popularity.