In a recent survey, it has come to light that Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo has in fact gone past Lionel Messi to emerge as the most admired sportsman in the world. His rival Messi is not too far behind though.
The survey has been conducted by YouGov and it includes many celebrities including former President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Matthew Smith, who works as a reporter for YouGov, revealed that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the most admired male figure of the year and he is followed by Barack Obama and Jackie Chan.
President of China Xi Jinping, the founder of e-commerce chain Alibaba- Jack Ma and India’s Prime Minister for the second term in a row Narendra Modi occupied the next three spots respectively.
Ronaldo was ranked seventh and he thus became the first in the category of sportspersons to feature on the list.
Dalai Lama came eight followed by Messi who came ninth. Thus, the Barcelona star became the second most admired sportsman of the year.
Interestingly, Ronaldo has the highest growth rate on the list. He was number 10 on the list and has taken a leap of three places to finish seventh.
A similar study was also done on women but notably, no women sportsperson made it to the Top 20.