The Real Madrid star has overtaken Gerard Pique's spouse Shakira as the most popular star on Facebook, racing well ahead of Lionel Messi and Neymar

Despite going through a rough patch on the field at Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo remains a much-loved figure all over the world and has now become the most 'liked' person on Facebook.

The Real Madrid star's stature as one of the best footballers of all-time has grown recently as he won a second consecutive Fifa Ballon d'Or for 2014, which was his third overall.

And while Madrid have dropped to second in La Liga and were almost eliminated from the Champions League in midweek, the 30-year-old remains No.1 to the global audience.

The attacker surpassed 100 million Facebook likes in October, but his stature on the social network site has grown since then as he currently has over 107 million fans.

That means he has surpassed Shakira as the most popular account on the website, having attracted over 16,000 more fans than the pop star and spouse of Barcelona defender Gerard Pique.

Unsurprisingly, Lionel Messi is the second-most popular footballer in the world on Facebook, with 78 million likes.

Real Madrid themselves have gathered over 82.9 million fans - marginally less than Barca's 83.6 million.

David Beckham comes third in the list of most popular current and former football players with just over 52 million, though Neymar is fast approaching the same figure.