Ronaldo, who boasts David Beckham's old No7 jersey, is set to overtake the LA Galaxy star on the table of global popularity.

The 22-year-old's management company, Gestifute, has secured lucrative endorsement contracts with Nike, Coca-Cola and Espirito Santo, a Portuguese bank, in recent years and is understood to be weighing up offers from a number of other companies, all desperate for an association with a player who has inherited far more from Beckham than just the iconic No7 shirt at Old Trafford.

"Now that he's approaching a peak in his career, he will probably start to sign some much bigger deals, as Beckham did," Paul Whitehead, of the Sport Markt consultancy, said yesterday. "Ronaldinho earns approximately £10 million per annum from commercial deals. Ronaldo isn't at that stage yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. With his popularity soaring in the Asian market, he is perfectly equipped to take over the mantle of Beckham."

Ronaldo's image makes him a perfect role model, according to another sport marketing expert.

"When you look at the names who have been at the top of football for the past few years, Beckham and Ronaldo [the Brazilian variety] are moving out of the equation because of their age and Ronaldinho didn't have a great season last year," Dr Simon Chadwick, of the Birkbeck Sports Business Centre, told The Times. "Nor is Ronaldinho a particularly handsome or photogenic guy.

"So we're left with the young guns, people like Rooney, Ronaldo, Franck Ribery [the Bayern Munich and France forward] and Fernando Torres [Liverpool's new striker]. Of those players, Ronaldo is the one who you would say ticks all the boxes. As a global sports personality, he's perfect. He's a fantastic player, successful and good-looking. He also has a kind of cockiness. One of the problems with some sportsmen as brands is that they don't have a lively personality. But he has that. He's got everything."