Most-Read Footballers on Wikipedia (2016–2026) | Ten Years, Three Changes at No. 1

For almost seven years Cristiano Ronaldo was the footballer Wikipedia's readers looked up most, until Argentina's World Cup win carried Lionel Messi past him in April 2023. Ronaldo took No. 1 back that December, and after the 2026 World Cup lifted Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal to No. 3 and No. 4, Messi moved ahead again in September 2026, the last month of the data. On the way, Neymar's move to PSG, Mbappé's first World Cup, a Netflix series on David Beckham and the deaths of Emiliano Sala, Pelé and Diogo Jota each sent a player up the ranking. Each bar is the number of times a player's Wikipedia article was read in the past 12 months, added up over the ten largest Wikipedias (English, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Polish and Portuguese), with known bots left out and the views under an article's former titles included. It measures attention, not popularity or ability. Views of each player's article in the past 12 months, ten largest Wikipedias, in millions 0:00 Jun 2016 0:32 Aug 2017: Neymar's €222M move to PSG lifts him to No. 3 0:58 Jul 2018: France win the World Cup, and Kylian Mbappé, 19, climbs to No. 4 1:15 Feb 2019: Emiliano Sala, lost in a plane crash on 21 January, enters the top 12 2:25 Aug 2021: Messi leaves Barcelona for PSG, Ronaldo returns to Manchester United 3:12 Apr 2023: Messi passes Ronaldo: the first change at No. 1 in almost seven years 3:31 Dec 2023: Ronaldo is No. 1 again. A Netflix series has lifted Beckham to No. 3 3:48 Jul 2024: Spain win Euro 2024, and Lamine Yamal, 17, jumps from No. 10 to No. 5 4:16 Jul 2025: Diogo Jota dies in a car crash on 3 July: 10.5 million views in a month 4:49 Sep 2026: Messi takes No. 1 back in the last month, 0.7 million views ahead Data: Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia page views (CC0 1.0) · Photos: Wikimedia Commons, Bryan Berlin, Colleen Sturtevant, Gabriel Hutchinson, Chensiyuan, Mikael Hervestad, Fabrizio Neitzke (CC BY-SA 4.0); Soccer Aid for Unicef, Real Madrid (CC BY 3.0); Светлана Бекетова, Кирилл Венедиктов, Oleg Bkhambri (CC BY-SA 3.0); Web Summit, Vinod Divakaran, Doha Stadium Plus Qatar and Alza08 (CC BY 2.0); حسین ظهروند, Zack, Amir Hosseini (CC BY 4.0); Biser Todorov, Nuță Lucian, Chris 0023 (CC BY-SA 2.0) 'The Fury' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au #footballers #Wikipedia #CristianoRonaldo