London, Sep 3 (IANS): With less than a week to go until the International Olympic Committee (IOC) votes to decide if squash will join the 2020 Olympics, the sport's bid campaign has received worldwide, surging social media support.

As the campaign looks to build further momentum in the lead up to the IOC presentation Sep 8, the Squash 2020 Facebook page has now registered over 124,000 likes (a 21 percent increase over the last seven days) with the 'Back the Bid' film on YouTube receiving almost 153,000 views and @Vote4Squash Twitter account fast approaching 10,000 followers, according to a World Squash Federation (WSF) statement Tuesday.

As the only new sport to be shortlisted for inclusion at the 2020 Summer Games, squash has received social media support from across the globe, including Brazil, Egypt, Columbia, Spain, South Africa, Japan, Switzerland, India, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Malaysia.

WSF president N. Ramachandran said: "Digital and social media is a great platform to engage and bring people together and it is fantastic to see the growing number of people from around the world supporting Squash 2020 online."

"Squash can genuinely offer something exciting and fresh to the Olympic experience and as we look to build further momentum in the lead up to the 125th IOC Session, I hope that more and more people will support our bid and help persuade the IOC to vote for squash."