No Ghanaian player features among the 20 most-followed footballers at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with Cristiano Ronaldo comfortably leading the global rankings.
A study by MyBettingSites.co.uk, which analysed the Instagram accounts of 1,244 players across all 48 World Cup squads, found that Portugal captain Ronaldo has 665.6 million followers, the highest of any player at the tournament.
Lionel Messi of Argentina ranks second with 506.5 million followers, followed by Brazil's Neymar (234.3 million), France's Kylian Mbappé (130.5 million) and Egypt's Mohamed Salah (65.4 million).
The study found that the combined Instagram following of all players at the tournament stands at 3.39 billion, with Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar and Mbappé alone accounting for 45.4% of that total.
Ghana's players are absent from the list of the tournament's biggest social media stars, reflecting the gap between the Black Stars squad and football's most commercially influential names.
At national team level, Portugal tops the rankings with a combined squad following of 743.2 million, ahead of Argentina (647.5 million), Brazil (424.9 million) and France (229.1 million). Egypt is Africa's highest-ranked nation in seventh, driven largely by Mohamed Salah's 65.4 million followers, while Morocco sits ninth with 72.8 million followers thanks to Achraf Hakimi.
The report also highlighted New Zealand defender Tim Payne, whose Instagram following reportedly surged from around 5,000 to 5.5 million after going viral before the tournament, illustrating how a World Cup can dramatically increase a player's global profile.
According to the study, Ronaldo could earn an estimated $6.66 million for a sponsored Instagram post, while Messi's estimated value is $5.07 million per post.
Send your news stories to [email protected] and via WhatsApp on +233 546310076.
Read Full Story
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Instagram
Google+
YouTube
LinkedIn
RSS