Cristiano Ronaldo earns a lot from the sponsorship of fake fans

CRISTIANO RONALDO is estimated to earn a staggering £388,000 per sponsored post from fake Instagram followers.

The Portuguese superstar, through no fault of his own, is believed to have 92 million fake accounts among his record 400 million followers.

This is due to the rise of bot accounts on social media.

For every sponsored post that Ronaldo - the most popular person on the photo-sharing app - uploads to Instagram, data complied by livefootballtickets.com suggests that he earns a staggering £1.69million.

But if 92 million of his followers are fake, that would mean that £388,000-per-post is earned due to bot accounts.

Ronaldo, 37, is one of the most marketable athletes in the world and has posted his fair share of content.

This week he has uploaded paid posts for Nike and his CR7 underwear brand.

The Manchester United star also posted about hair transplant clinic Insparya.

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Ronaldo isn't the only athlete that is estimated to earn plenty of revenue through being followed by bot accounts.

Lionel Messi is thought to have around 70 million fake Instagram followers, pocketing him £287k-per-post.

This week, the Argentine has posted paid content in conjunction with Lays crisps and The Messi Store.

Neymar is next up with 34 million estimated fake followers and £140k-per-post, while his PSG team-mates Kylian Mbappe and Sergio Ramos reportedly net £52k and £47k respectively because of bots for each upload.

Gareth Bale, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Karim Benzema are then predicted to pocket £45k respectively from each post, while Liverpool star Mo Salah nets £41k.

Luis Suarez rounds off the top ten, with a predicted £39k earned through fake followers per post.

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