Messi's World Cup victory photo on Instagram sets record for athletes' posts

By Can Erozden

ANKARA (AA) - Lionel Messi's FIFA World Cup victory photo has received the most likes of any image posted by an athlete on Instagram.

Messi's post, titled "CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!," got over 49.8 million likes on the social media platform since it was posted on Sunday.

In the photo, Messi is raising the World Cup trophy, celebrating Argentina's glorious win over then-defending champions France.

It beat Cristiano Ronaldo's post of the Portugal forward and Messi were playing chess, which tallied about 42 million likes on Instagram, the previous record.

Ronaldo, who also featured in Qatar 2022, posted it on Nov. 19, a day before the 2022 World Cup started.

However, it still fell short of the platform's most-liked post, a photo of an egg that has garnered more than 56 million likes since it was posted in early 2019 by user world_record_egg. The photo of a brown egg on a white background remains unbeaten on Instagram.

Messi has 400 million followers on Instagram.

On Sunday, Messi-led Argentina beat France 4-2 on penalties to win the World Cup.