Cristiano Ronaldo becomes first person to reach 500 million social media followers

Cristiano Ronaldo has reportedly become the first person to reach 500 million followers across social media platforms.

The Portuguese superstar became the all-time leading goalscorer in football history earlier this year, notching his 760th goal in professional football in the Supercoppa Italiana victory over Napoli. Pele and Josef Bican stans have disputed that record, however.

However, not even Pele can deny Ronaldo in his latest achievement, after he became the first person to reach half a billion followers on social media.

He is the most popular account on Instagram, where 262 million others follow his account. His Facebook page has almost 125 million likes and 147 million followers, and a further 91 million people follow him on Twitter. According to a report published by The Sun.

Outside of the big hitters, he also has over a million subscribers on his official YouTube channel, despite the account remaining fairly inactive for long periods of time.

Ronaldo's most recent Instagram post was a picture of himself with girlfriend Georgina Rodriguez, who herself boasts 23.6m followers.

Meanwhile, Lionel Messi (because the two most always be compared of course) has an accumulated 265 million followers across platforms.

Ronaldo's 262 million Instagram followers dwarf those of Messi, who has amassed only 183 million supporters of his own. In fairness, the Argentine has posted less than 1,000 times on his account, while frequent user Ronaldo has offered up over 3,000 pictures to his loyal followers.

The message is clear, then. Messi must up his game to catch Ronaldo in this online war. But the Juventus superstar seems to be unassailable in this field, as his popularity only continues to grow with each passing year.