Messi's World Cup victory photo gets more than 53 million likes; the most by any athlete on Instagram

ANKARA, Turkey: Lionel Messi's FIFA World Cup victory photo has received the most likes of any image posted by an athlete on Instagram.

Messi's post, titled "CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!" garnered more than 53 million likes on the social media platform since it was first posted on Sunday (Dec 18), according to Anadolu Agency.

In the photo, Messi, who has more than 400 million followers on Instagram, is seen raising the World Cup trophy, celebrating Argentina's win over 2018 champions France.

It beat the previous record of 42 million likes, which was Cristiano Ronaldo's Instagram post of Messi and himself playing chess as part of a Louis Vuitton advertising campaign.

Ronaldo, who also featured at the Qatar World Cup, posted it on Nov 19, a day before the tournament started.

Messi's post, however, still fell short of Instagram's most-liked post, a photo of a brown egg against a white background that has garnered more than 56 million likes since it was posted in early 2019 by user @world_record_egg. 

On Sunday, Messi-led Argentina beat France 4-2 on penalties to win the World Cup.