The fallout between Cristiano Ronaldo and Jorge Jesus has spread to the Portugal national team’s social media accounts, with the official Instagram page losing more than 400,000 followers in less than 24 hours.
Ronaldo left Portugal’s training camp in Denmark on Wednesday evening after a dispute linked to comments made by Jorge Jesus. The disagreement quickly moved from the football world to social media, where the impact was reflected in the national team’s following.
According to Portuguese newspaper A Bola, the Portugal account had about 24,942,000 followers when the crisis emerged on Wednesday evening. By Thursday afternoon, that figure had fallen to approximately 24,500,000.
Some users said they had followed the account because of Ronaldo rather than the national team itself.
“We were not following Portugal; we were following Cristiano Ronaldo,” read one comment reported by A Bola.
Another user wrote: “Now I no longer have to pretend that I like Portugal because of Cristiano. He was the only good player in this team.”
Ronaldo’s sister responds
The sharp fall in followers was noted by Elma Aveiro, Ronaldo’s sister, who shared screenshots and figures showing the decline on her Instagram story.
She accompanied the posts with messages that appeared to refer directly to the dispute. One read: “Betrayal is a dish best served cold… here, the action is taken and here, the price is paid. The road ahead.”
The phrase carries a similar meaning to the expression “what goes around comes around”.
In another post, Aveiro wrote: “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 a period marked by recent developments surrounding his future with Portugal.
The decline in followers for the national team’s account came as the dispute between Ronaldo and Jorge Jesus continued to attract attention online. The drop was recorded within hours of Ronaldo’s departure from the Portugal camp in Denmark, while comments from supporters highlighted the extent to which the forward’s global following is connected to interest in the national side.
