We’re finally getting over a blockbuster summer transfer window which saw high profile moves from the world’s biggest and best football stars. First, Messi dominated the headlines with an emotional move to PSG – then we saw a big money move to former club Chelsea for Romelu Lukuku. We saw the breakdown of what was set to be the biggest transfer in Premier League history – a potential transfer for the UKs leading striker Harry Kane to Manchester City.
However, these sagas were overshadowed as the Ronaldo transfer battle between rivals City and Utd came to a head, with Utd fans celebrating the homecoming of their legendary number 7.
But how did the football world respond? The transfer resulted in worldwide pandemonium, with frenzied fans taking to socials and the club shops to be part of the historic return. We’ve put together the transfer in number just to demonstrate the impact of the world on football.
These numbers are accurate as of the 30th of September:
- £187 million worth of shirt sales – Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United Shirt Sales Have Reached A Record-Breaking £187 Million. As expected, there was a huge number of online searches for the new ‘Ronaldo 7’ shirt – with an increase of over 600% recorded. As well as breaking the record for the fastest selling football shirt in the history of the premier league, Utd have generated an additional £13.1m in shirt sale revenue – and counting! Not only was this monumental
- 2.9 million tweets in 1 day – When the transfer was announced on the 27th of July, a record was set for the highest number of Twitter conversations surrounding Manchester utd – some 2.9m Tweets! This is 1.6m more Tweets than the second most tweeted about Manchester Utd event, when Ronaldo visited Old Trafford with Real Madrid back in 2013.
- 96 million new Instagram followers – According to ManySpins.com figures, Ronaldos Instagram followers rose from 50m on January 1, 2021 to a whopping 346m on September 21 – a huge increase of 96 million followers. As a result, Ronaldo is the very first Instagram user to top 300m followers.
– 12.9m Instagram likes – According to ESPN, the photo release on Instagram when the Ronaldo transfer was announced received a record breaking 12.9m likes – as is the most liked sports photo of all time.
- A huge spike in Google Searches for ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’ – According to Google trends, worldwide traffic for Cristiano related spiked to an all time high and is now falling slightly. This shows that the move had a global impact.
- There was a similar spike for those looking to immortalise Ronaldo with a poster. According to Sports Photo Gallery – Searches reached a peak for ‘Ronaldo Posters.’
- 5 goals in 6 games – So the move was clearly very highly anticipated – but has his performance lived up to the hype? The stats in the first 6 games would indicate that it certainly has! The Portuguese has 5 goals in 6 games – including two on his eagerly anticipated second debut. According to the Manchester Utd website, Ronaldo has also produced the most shots overall (13), as well as the highest number from inside the box (12) and on target (7). The Portugal captain has also had the most touches inside the opposition’s box (21) and has created the largest tally of big chances (5). Talk about impact!
Further to this, during the West Ham game, Ronaldo managed to clock the fastest sprint time of the day, with an impressive 32.51 km/h – at the age of 36. He’s still got it!
This transfer was arguably the most high profile transfer in football history. There is unlikely to be such a globally discussed sports related transfer for many years to come. Time will tell whether Ronaldo’s rich vein of form continues and if he will make the all important difference when closing the gap between Utd and those competing for Premier League glory. But for now Utd are riding the high of their hero returning.