Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have more followers on social media than the clubs they play for, Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain, respectively.
The Portuguese forward has around 593 million followers on his personal accounts, with the Argentine having 375 million followers in total. Messi's total is reduced due to the fact that he does not have a Twitter account.
The findings come from UEFA, which includes social media in its annual football standards report.
Ronaldo and Messi lead the race
To put into context how many followers the two biggest footballers in modern football have, Manchester United have a total of 169 million followers, which is far below Ronaldo alone.
PSG has fewer followers than United, with 133 million in total, less than half of Messi's.
As for the leading clubs, Real Madrid is currently the most followed club in world football, with 251.5 million followers in total.
Barcelona finished in second place behind Real Madrid with 248 million followers, showing the clear difference between the two Spanish giants and Manchester United, as well as PSG.
Summer signings see social media surge
As well as being the most popular figures on social media, Ronaldo and Messi were the subject of high-profile transfers in the summer of 2021.
Ronaldo returned to Manchester United from Juventus, while Messi shocked the world with his move from Barcelona to PSG.
Messi's move saw a 13 percent increase in PSG's social media followers from 110.5 million to 115.7 million on the day of his launch.
That was just over 3 per cent of Ronaldo's jump in United's social media following from 161.1 million to 163.2 million when the club announced.
In addition to the impact on their club's social media, the announcement images used by the players on their accounts sent the world into hysteria.
Ronaldo's announcement on his Instagram account reached 19 million likes, usurped by Messi's 22 million likes on his Instagram account after signing for PSG.
Fan reaction made their posts some of the most viral social media posts in football history, a credit to their popularity.
Real Madrid performs well
Real Madrid were again on top when it came to social media following, showing that social media has generated success off the pitch.
With over 200 million followers on Facebook and Instagram, their Twitter account also leads with over 63 million followers.
/Telegraph/
