Ronaldo is happy to be sacked

‘You’d need to live on the moon not to know about Cristiano Ronaldo’s interview with Piers Morgan,’ said England footballer Jesse Lingard. I doubt even that would provide adequate protection. I’ve never experienced such global attention for anything in my career, and it reflects Ronaldo’s status as world sport’s biggest star. In fact, given he has 25 per cent more Instagram followers than anyone else – he passed 500 million this week, 123 million more than his nearest rival, Lionel Messi – I’d argue he’s the world’s biggest star of any kind. The interview’s been watched 15 million times on YouTube alone, which already makes it the most-viewed sports interview ever. It might even end up eclipsing the most-watched interview with anyone – Michael Jackson’s 1993 TV confessional with Oprah Winfrey, which got 63 million viewers. When I relayed this to Cristiano, whose ego makes me seem a bastion of humility, he chuckled.