An expert study has revealed Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo as being more valuable than Barcelona ace Lionel Messi. 'IPAM - The Marketing School' has released results of a study of both football superstars and concluded Ronaldo is the bigger marketable name.

Ronaldo is the most popular player on the Internet, he has more Facebook fans than Messi (42 million versus 34 million), counts on 139 million Google searches (80 million more than the 'Flea'), 212,000 videos hosted on Youtube and 8 million followers on Twitter.

The market potential of Cristiano Ronaldo is, likewise, supported by social projection.

The Portuguese is referenced in 205 books from Amazon (Messi 85) and 2157 scientific articles (Argentina in 1608). In the ranking of celebrities by Forbes magazine, the former Manchester United star is ranked 43, while Messi is at 62.

IPAM believe Ronaldo's worth per year is €40 million compared to Messi's €37 million.