Soccer (or football or futbol depending on where you are in the world) dominates TV around the globe. Neo Mam, an infographic agency, put together an infographic for unibet.com that analyzes what Twitter tells us about the modern game of soccer. Christiano Ronaldo clearly shows a high correlation between his monetary value and number of Twitter followers. Most telling, though, is that Lionel Messi, widely considered the world’s best footballer, is not on Twitter. Based on his worldwide popularity, the popularity of the sport, and his actual value, Messi would surely reach Ronaldo-like numbers quickly. Here are some more highlights from the company and the infographic.

Players

Footballers and their tweeting are never out of the news, but how does their reputation as players stack up to their reputation on twitter?

Twitter shy – Fernando Torres has only 1 tweet, stating in October 2011 that he will start tweeting ‘when the timing is right’. 688,151 people are waiting for him.

Top association footballers are far more popular on twitter than their American counterparts

Popular Piqué – Piqué is followed by seven of these superstar footballers.

Matter of taste – Wayne Rooney is a fan of One Direction and Ed Sheeran, while Christiano Ronaldo follows Enrique Inglasias. Bad boy Joey Barton however belies his reputation and chooses to follow Nietzsche and WB Yeats.

Manchester United are the most popular football club in the world with an estimated 659 million fans. If they had a twitter feed, they would surely top this chart.

A total of 13.1 million people attended premier league games in the 2011/12 season, compared to just over 700,000 premier league followers on twitter.

Whereas NFL stars fall far behind their soccer counterparts in terms of followers, the NFL itself is far more popular on twitter.

Lionel Messi who is the world’s most valuable footballer, with a price-tag of around £105 million and earnings of around £27.5 million, is also the most talked about on twitter.