The Messi v Ronaldo rivalry in Spain may have ended when the latter joined Juventus in 2018 – but the global, ongoing debate wasn’t disappearing.
Ronaldo went on to return to Manchester United before moving to current club Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, while Messi moved to Paris St-Germain, before signing for Inter Miami in America’s Major League Soccer – where he remains now.
Having seen their impact in Spain, for the first time the players’ moves were as commercially motivated as they were for football reasons.
“Brand Beckham opened the door for what was possible and these two have kicked the door off its hinges,” said Rob Pilgrim, head of sport at Meta for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Italian football expert Mina Rzouki, added: “You are not buying sporting excellence, you are buying a whole one-man economy.”
The numbers are astronomical and the rivalry continued.
In 2018, Ronaldo joins Juventus and sells 520,000 shirts in the first 24 hours. In 2021, Messi moves to Paris and shifts 150,000 shirts in just seven minutes.
Manchester United welcome Ronaldo back in 2021, and United’s total sales of his shirt (£187m) are almost double those of Messi’s at PSG.
On Instagram, Ronaldo has close to 700m followers, Messi has 500m. The most-liked picture in the history of that platform is the Argentine lifting the World Cup trophy, amassing more than 75m likes.
Financially, Ronaldo comes out on top – according to official channels anyway. The Portuguese has topped the Forbes Money List as the world’s highest paid athlete for a fourth consecutive time, with $300m (£223m) in total earnings. Messi is third on the list with $140m (£104m).
The rivalry between the pair is only accentuated by the fact they are on either side of the sportswear rivalry. Messi with Adidas and Ronaldo with Nike.
“They have become enormous global brands and what is amazing about them is they have to say almost nothing to become the world’s biggest pitch man,” said Robinson.
Brands the world over threw unparalleled amounts of money to get the superstars on board.
And who could forget the iconic image before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with both footballers playing chess against each other on a Louis Vuitton suitcase, to launch the designer’s latest campaign.
“It is known as the picture that broke the internet. It was a commercial masterstroke,” said Melanie Ropp, from social media marketing company the Goat Agency. “The timing of it before the World Cup made it globally iconic.”
So, back to where we started.
Robinson said: “Messi has nothing left to conquer. He has that one thing Ronaldo does not, a World Cup. Now the question is did Messi win this entire era of football?”
It has to be remembered this story is not over and, with Argentina and Portugal potentially meeting in the latter stages of this summer’s World Cup, the final act could be about to play out.
