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PHOTO: Lionel Messi, Captain of Argentina National Football Team
Messi, Neymar and Mbappe named as the top three winners of the 3rd WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awards 2025
With 625.7 million, 384.4 million and 161.3 million social media followers respectively in the combination of Instagram, Facebook and X (Twitter), as at November 10, 2025, Lionel Messi of Argentina, Neymar Jr. of Brazil and Kylian Mbappe of France have been named as the top three winners of the 3rd WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awards 2025.
The seven other winners of this award in 2025 are Karim Benzema (France) 141.7 million combined followers on these three social media platforms; Sergio Ramos (Spain) 126.4 million followers; Marcelo Vieira (Brazil) 108.9 million; James Rodriguez (Colombia) 105.2 million; Gareth Bale (UK) 104.5 million; Mohamed Salah (Egypt) 103 million; and Paul Pogba (France) 99.2 million, in that order.
Among these 10 winners of the WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awards, Kylian Mbappe grew his social media followership the fastest in the past one year, adding 17.3 million to his combined followership in Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Messi added 4.7 million followers this year, while Salah added 4million. Neymar and Ramos added 2.4 million respectively, while Pogba gained 2.2 million more followers. A glaring omission from this global social media award winners list in 2025 is Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, left out on account of his age.
The social media ranking was done by the editorial team of REVENUE magazine and Tractors for Africa (publications of Alford Conferences Limited), and it was released in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday November 10, 2025. This ranking is the basis for which the annual WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awards is presented.
Speaking at the announcement of the 2025 awardees in Abuja, Nigeria, today, the CEO of Alford Conferences Limited, Mr. Frederick Apeji, explained that, “The winners of the yearly WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awards must not be older than 40 years as at 30th September of the award presentation year, and they must be soccer players for the national team of a member-country of any of the six FIFA continental soccer federations: AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North America, Central America, and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (Oceania) and UEFA (Europe).”
“Though Ronaldo continues to maintain his profile as the most popular soccer player on Earth today, with 944 million combined followers on Instagram, Facebook and X, we had to leave him out of this year’s list because he attained 40 years on February 5, 1985. The Portuguese soccer star, who hinted a few days ago about his forthcoming retirement from the sport after the 2026 FIFA World Cup, has therefore effectively transferred his leadership of the WORLDEX Social Meets Soccer Awardee List in the past two years to his archrival, Messi.”
Apeji added that, “Social media is arguably the biggest invention of the global tech industry in the past two decades, especially since 2004 when Facebook was established; and it is the invention that has the largest number of human beings as active users in recorded history. From our survey of the categories of users of social media in the past three years, sports stars, musicians and film stars rank the highest as distinct groups on Instagram, Facebook and X.”
“And among the sports stars, soccer players, as a group, top the list in all these three social media apps. This has informed our focus on soccer when creating this award category for WORLDEX, an annual tech trade fair that seeks to link up Africa more powerfully with the rest of the global tech community. And considering the Africa-focus of this global tech show, we are excited to see Mohamed Salah, the captain of the Egyptian National Football Team, on the top 10 social media winners list for 2023, 2024 and 2025.”
Awwal Ibrahim Ndako
Head of Corporate Communications, Alford Conferences Limited
Abuja, Nigeria
THE 7TH WORLD DIGITAL EXHIBITION (WORLDEX) 2026
The 7th World Digital Exhibition (WORLDEX) 2026 would feature the winners in two out of the designated eight award categories: the Social Meets Soccer Awards (10 recipients) and the Africa Telecom 50 Awards (50 recipients). The two awards are expected to be presented at an in-person event in the 4th quarter of 2026.
The Social Meets Soccer Awards, now in its 4rd edition, would be reserved for the top 10 soccer players in the world with the highest number of social media followers in the combination of Instagram, Facebook and X (Twitter). Such players must be nationals of FIFA-member countries, irrespective of the country or club they currently play for (active or retired), and they must be less than 40 years old as at 30th September of the year of the event.
The Africa Telecom 50 Awards will go to the 50 biggest mobile network operators (MNOs) in the 54 countries of Africa, based on the most recently available data on their subscription base. We published the maiden edition of the annual Africa Telecom 50 Report in April 2024. We shall use the 2025/2026 edition of this report to select the 50 winners of the 1st Africa Telecom 50 Awards. WORLDEX 2026 will honour the winners in both award categories (60 of them altogether).
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