Cristiano Ronaldo Told People Not to Drink Coke During Euro 2020 Interview to Spread Fitness Message

Do you know that Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t just a skilled footballer who can do crazy stepovers and curve the ball like a banana?

The 36-year-old is also one of the most popular influencers in the world, and rightfully so: with well over 300m Instagram followers, he’s been cited as a case study on key opinion leader marketing, the definition of influencer for people who study business.

In other words, he’s the real deal, not just on the soccer field but on the online world, too.

So it’s no surprise that a single action from him would lead to conversations…not pertaining to soccer at all.

Cristiano Ronaldo Told People Not to Drink Coke During Euro 2020 Interview to Spread Fitness Message

Unless you’re one who still believes that having seafood would make your swim faster, you probably know that exercise and a balanced diet play a key role in our health.

And you’d know that sugary drink isn’t healthy, even if you’re a professional footballer who runs the distance of the entire PIE daily.

On 14 June, before the match between Portugal and Hungary took place, the Portugal captain went on a press conference.

Two Coca-Cola bottles were placed on his right as Coca-Cola is one of the sponsors for the entire Euro 2020 competition.

After sitting for a few seconds before the press conference started, he realised the Coke bottles were in frame, and the fitness fanatic grabbed the bottles and placed them out of frame to his left.

Well, that would not have been news since he could’ve thought that the bottles were blocking his view or whatnot…but he then grabbed a bottle of clear water, showed it to the audience and shouted, “Agua!” which means water in Portuguese, and appears to say, “Not Coca-Cola” after that.

Here, watch this defining moment:

The video went so viral that it started a trend in TikTok, whereby people grabbed the Coke bottles off the screen.

Maybe Health Promotion Board paid Cristiano Ronaldo to do that lah I don’t know.

Shares of Coca-Cola Dropped But It Might Not Have Been Due to This Incident

Soon after the video went viral, it was reported extensively that Coca-Cola lost almost USD$4 billion due to Ronaldo’s actions.

That was both true and untrue.

While it’s true that Coca-Cola’s value dropped by USD$4 billion as the price of its shares dropped to that point that day, it eventually recovered and closed that day with an overall dip of USD$500 million that day instead: peanuts compared to its market value of USD$235 billion.

This kind of fluctuation occurs regularly, and like what the president of Meeschaert Financial Services in New York said, we won’t have noticed the drop if not for Ronaldo’s actions.

In other words, Ronaldo might have achieved the best of both worlds: keeping people healthy by encouraging them to choose a healthier choice and not causing the share prices of a company to drop.

Featured Image: YouTube (BeanymanSports)