On 10 July 2018, Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo signed a four-year contract with Italian club Juventus after completing a €100 million transfer, plus solidarity contributions to Ronaldo’s youth clubs and an additional €12 million in other fees.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s army of supporters have a huge impact on the social media following of his clubs.

The statistics reveal that millions of fans are loyal to the Portuguese superstar rather than his team.

When Ronaldo joined Juventus, the Italian champions saw a massive increase in their popularity online, whereas Real Madrid lost one million Twitter followers within 24 hours, as revealed by Tifo Football.

The impact on the Juventus Instagram page was the most extreme, with their account seeing a 25 per cent increase in followers.

Across all social media platforms, Ronaldo’s new side gained six million new fans, a remarkable upgrade.

Juve now boasts 35m Facebook followers, 6.2m on Twitter and 15.3m on Instagram.