Social media: Cristiano Ronaldo, the world's most followed footballer ahead of Messi and Neymar

Portugal international Cristiano Ronaldo, who returns to Manchester United FC (Premier League) after leaving the club at the end of the 2008-09 season, has over 579 million cumulative followers on the social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as of 30/08/2021.

This figure makes Ronaldo the world's most followed footballer ahead of Argentina's Lionel Messi (who does not have an official account on Twitter) and Brazil's Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, both of whom play for Paris Saint-Germain (Ligue 1 Uber Eats), and who have 365.9 million and 299.9 million cumulative followers respectively.

The former Juventus FC (Serie A TIM) player also has a digital community nearly four times larger than that of his new club, with Manchester United totalling 146.6 million followers on the three main social networks. With 335.8 followers on Instagram, Cristiano Ronaldo has more than seven times as many followers as the Manchester club, which counts 45.9 million. The Portuguese forward also has 149.4 million likes on Facebook, double the number of the English club, and nearly 94 million…