Cristiano Ronaldo row sees Portugal Instagram account lose more than 400,000 followers

The official Portugal national team Instagram account lost more than 400,000 followers in less than 24 hours as the fallout from the dispute between Cristiano Ronaldo and Jorge Jesus spread online.

Ronaldo left Portugal’s training camp in Denmark on Wednesday evening after a crisis emerged following comments made by Jesus. The disagreement quickly moved beyond the team environment and into social media, where the national side’s account saw a sharp drop in followers.

According to Portuguese newspaper A Bola, the account had about 24,942,000 followers on Wednesday evening, as the dispute broke out. By Thursday afternoon, that figure had fallen to approximately 24,500,000.

Several comments posted on social media suggested that some followers had been more interested in Ronaldo than in the national team itself.

“We were not following Portugal, we were following Cristiano Ronaldo,” read one comment reported by A Bola.

Another said: “Now I no longer have to pretend that I like Portugal because of Cristiano. He was the only good player in this national team.”

Ronaldo’s sister reacts

The drop in the national team account’s numbers was also highlighted by Ronaldo’s sister, Elma Aveiro, who shared details of the decline on her Instagram story.

She accompanied the posts with comments that appeared to carry a clear message about the dispute.

“Betrayal is a dish best served cold… here, one does something and here, one pays the price. The road ahead,” she wrote, using a phrase that broadly means: “As you do, so shall you receive.”

In another post, Aveiro added: “Here we are, the world turns in many cycles.”

Ronaldo remains the most-followed person on Instagram, with a total of 679 million followers.

However, his own account has also lost more than 500,000 followers over the past 15 days, during the latest developments surrounding his future with Portugal.