Known as soccer in specific parts of the globe, there is no arguing that football is the world’s leading sport in terms of popularity. Billions of people watch some of the best teams and players and support them when playing. Needless to say, this reflects on the popularity of some of the biggest stars on social media.Whether we like it or not, social media plays an important role in many things. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow us to follow our favorite players and keep an eye on everything they do. Speaking of players, some of them are more popular than others, so let’s learn more about which are the football players who are big on social media.
Cristiano Ronaldo
It probably does not come as a surprise that the world’s most popular athlete (for now) is Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal’s legend.. He has more than 630M followers on Instagram alone, making him the most followed person on the platform.Of course, Cristiano Ronaldo is a lot more than just an Instagram influencer. Many people regard him as one of the best players of all time, which is no surprise, considering what he achieved. He scored countless goals for Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Juventus, and now, he is a part of the Saudi club Al Nassr. In fact, it is safe to say that Cristiano Ronaldo paved the way for some of the world’s best footballers to join clubs in Saudi.
Aside from having millions of followers on Instagram, Ronaldo is big on every other platform where he has an account. For example, Ronaldo has around 170 million followers on Facebook alone.
Lionel Messi
Some of the world’s biggest football experts and fans consider Lionel Messi to be the world’s best player. Considering that he has won everything in the world, including the World Cup with Argentina, it’s no surprise that so many people like him.Messi is also huge on social media because he has 530M followers. What’s interesting is that this number increased a lot after he joined Inter Miami following the World Cup. In fact, this transfer resulted in special betting welcome offers from some operators because they knew that a lot of football fans would be interested in wagering on Messi’s new team. Needless to say, this turned out to be true.
Messi continues to be a key figure for his team and country, so most fans are eager to see what’s going to happen in the future. One thing is certain, this is one of those players that will go down in history as one of the best in the world.
Neymar
There were times when people considered Neymar to be among the world’s best footballers. In fact, a lot of fans put him just under Ronaldo and Messi, especially when he was in Barcelona and played alongside the Argentinian superstar.
While things haven’t been going well for him in the last couple of years, there is no arguing that Neymar is incredibly popular. At the time of writing, his Instagram profile has more than 221M followers, making him the most followed Brazilian.
Fans are still waiting for Neymar to lead his country to another World Cup. Things didn’t work out in Qatar, but there is another World Cup soon, and this will be one of Neymar’s last chances because he is 32 years old.
Kylian Mbappe
Lastly, we have the French superstar who is considered to be the best in the world right now. Mbappe is a part of PSG, and he was one of the main reasons why France has been so successful in the international scene. Despite not winning the 2022 World Cup with his country, Mbappe proved himself on the international scene and became one of the most recognizable names.
Speaking of recognition, the French superstar has a massive online following. If we take a look at his Instagram account, we can see that he has more than 114M followers. This puts him ahead of the likes of many top-tier footballers.
Conclusion
These were the top 4 most followed footballers on Instagram (and social media as a whole). What’s interesting is that there aren’t that many professional athletes besides them. For example, Dwayne Johnson (we can consider him to be a wrestler/actor) has close to 400M and Virat Kohli, the famous cricket player, has 269M. The only other athlete who has more followers than Mbappe is LeBron James.