Lionel Messi becomes only athlete after Cristiano Ronaldo to achieve THIS huge feat

Messi has passed the 300-million follower count on Instagram – becoming just the second athlete ever to hit the landmark after his arch-rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who is comfortably leading the list with a remarkable 392 million followers on the app.

Lionel Messi (left), Cristiano Ronaldo (right) (Source: Twitter)

Football superstar Lionel Messi might have been away from the field for some time but the PSG talisman continues to break records.

Interestingly, Messi has passed the 300-million follower count on Instagram – becoming just the second athlete ever to hit the landmark after his arch-rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who is comfortably leading the list with a remarkable 392 million followers on the photo-sharing platform – the most of any person in the world.

Notably, Messi is now the third-most followed person on Instagram after Ronaldo and American businesswoman and model, Kylie Jenner, who currently has 302 million followers on the app.

Lionel Messi reaches 300m+ followers on Instagram 

Cristiano Ronaldo is currently sat on 392m  pic.twitter.com/DVkE8srbYO — GOAL (@goal) January 19, 2022

However, it is worth mentioning that while Messi trails Ronaldo on the followers count, the Portuguese superstar has posted significantly more times on his account than the Argentine forward.

Messi has shared only 820 posts on his profile compared to 3,219 of Ronaldo – who has posted almost four times as frequently.

Leo Messi has hit 300 million followers on Instagram with the best Follower per Post (FPP) rate in recorded history: 365,000

GOAT things  pic.twitter.com/dwm3eXXbnf — MC (@CrewsMat10) January 12, 2022

Talking about only footballers then Messi’s teammate Neymar is third in the list – with 168 million followers, less than half that of Ronaldo.

Also, in 2021 Ronaldo rose to the top of Instagram’s yearly rich list of celebrities who can charge the most for a sponsored post, with the footballer commanding as much as $1.6 million (£1.2 million) to endorse any product on the social media platform.

The Manchester United striker toppled former WWE superstar and current Hollywood bigshot Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson off the top spot.

It was a major upheaval as for the first time anyone other than reality TV, film, and music stars from the United States topped the list which started in 2017, according to a report by Hopper HQ,

In terms of footballers, Messi was second on the list but 7th in the overall charts. He charges $1.16 million per post.