Despite antics at Man Utd, Ronaldo tops chart of most popular players in EPL

Cristiano Ronaldo is the most popular player in the Premier League, with around 489 million followers, according to Seatpick.

The Manchester United striker recently scored his 700th club goal, and is (along with Paris Saint-Germain’s Lionel Messi) among the most famous and decorated players of his era, if not of all time.

• Zungeru Hydro Power Project 96% completed – Power Minister
• Buhari: US, UK travel advisories shouldn’t cause panic

Ronaldo was recently sanction or refusing to play for the Red Devils as a substitute but the legend has since been recalled to the first team.

To give you an idea of his popularity, the only Instagram account with more followers than Ronaldo’s is Instagram’s itself.

Mo Salah takes second place, with 53.1 million followers.

Another Liverpool legend of the modern era, Philippe Coutinho, follows in third, with close to 25 million followers.

Though “The Little Magician” has long left Anfield, he is still beloved by many Liverpool fans, with fond memories of his goals and abilities.

He now plays under former teammate Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa, and though some have called into question his current form, it is no doubt that the Brazilian is still one of the Premier League’s most popular stars.

Thiago Silva, another Brazilian icon, is ranked fourth, with around 20 million followers. Manchester City’s Erling Haaland comes in fifth, with almost 20 million followers.

Other notable findings:

* 6 out of the 20 most popular current PL players play for Brazil on an international level.

* Premier League players boast over 1.2 billion total followers when added together. This means that Cristiano Ronaldo’s following of 489 million makes up over 40% of the entire league’s.

*Manchester United is the PL team that has the largest number of players in the top 20 for popularity, with five. Their Instagram page is also the most popular team page in the PL, with 61.2 million followers.

*The most popular goalkeeper in the PL is Manchester United’s David De Gea, with close to 14 million followers.

*The most popular manager in the PL is Everton’s Frank Lampard, with 5.8 million followers.

How we got here

To find out which Premier League player is the most popular, Seatpick first collected data on every player for each of the 20 teams currently in the Premier League, using the Premier League’s official website.

With this seed list, they searched for each player’s account on Instagram and made a note of their follower numbers as they appear on their page. Players who do not have an Instagram account or whose account could not be found were left as ‘0’ and ‘N/A’.

The same method was used to find follower numbers for all the Premier League managers and official club pages.

All follower numbers were added up, divided by teams and for the league as a whole as well.

A final ranking was made of the 20 most popular players in the Premier League based on their current number of Instagram followers. Their club and international teams were also noted down.

Players who are on loan for the season were counted as part of their current team. E.g., Conor Coady is currently playing for Everton on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers, so he has been counted as an Everton player.

All data was collected in October 2022 and is accurate as of then.