The fortune Vinicius Junior, Haaland and Bellingham make using social media

The end of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's professional careers is drawing ever closer. They were the undisputed kings of soccer for almost two decades, being part of memorable teams like Pep Guardiola's Barcelona and Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid, and winning 13 of the last 15 Ballon d'Or awards.

But now Leo is 36 and CR7 is 38, so the end is near and the time has come to pass the torch to the players of the next generation. Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Gavi, Pedri and Jamal Musiala are some of the stars raising their hands and preparing to compete for the place being left by Messi and Cristiano.

And many of them are already taking advantage of their success and fame to make profits that go beyond soccer. One of the most important tools they have is social media. Millions of fans around the world follow their favorite players on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, and there's a business there too.

The platform specialized in technology and sports SDA made a study on the use of social media by players under 23 years old to calculate how much money they can earn for each post. To do so, they reviewed the number of followers each of them has and considered the average value of one post per thousand followers.

Who are the main players?

According to this report, the player who can earn the most money thanks to social media is Vinicius Junior. The Real Madrid winger reaches the impressive figure of $456,618.60 per post and leads the ranking. In second place is Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, with $382,401.07, while third is another Real Madrid player, Jude Bellingham, with $234,180.65. Behind them are other top-class players like Barcelona's Gavi and Pedri.