Manchester United football star, Cristiano Ronaldo, has emerged as the most potent footballer on Instagram ahead of this year’s World Cup.

The 37-year-old has 481 million followers on the photo-sharing social media platform.

Ronaldo’s individual posts are also worth the most to brands, with each post valued at a staggering £3.1 million.

The analysis has been carried out by statistics company Nielsen Sports, which has assessed players’ total number of followers, follower growth in the last year, engagement rate and average brand value per post on Instagram.

Media value represents how much should have been spent on that media channel to obtain the same advertising impact.

Ronaldo’s follower count has surged by almost 47% over the last year and has a 2.25% engagement rate on the posts.

The Portuguese superstar places above his long-term rival Lionel Messi, who has 360 million followers and an individual post value of £2.3million.

The Argentine’s Paris Saint-Germain team-mates Neymar (178 million followers) and Kylian Mbappe (72.5 million) rank third and fourth respectively, with both individual posts worth just over £ 1 million.