90min Readers Name Notorious Cristiano Ronaldo Sculpture as the Worst of All Time

Last year was a difficult one for Emanuel Santos, the creator of the now infamous Cristiano Ronaldo bust.

His artistic take on the Real Madrid star was mocked mercilessly across the world, compared to Raoul Moat and the talking head thing off Art Attack.

Octavio Passos/GettyImages

And it appears that most football fans have not forgotten the cold stare, the menacing grimace of the Ronaldo statue that was unveiled politely and slightly awkwardly at Madeira Airport.

In 90min's latest poll to determine the worst football statue ever carved, the convincing winner (or loser, in this case) was unsurprising.

The unfortunate, but undeniably hilarious, Ronaldo sculpture garnered almost half of the total votes, some way ahead of its competition.

Image by Callum Rice-Coates

Trailing in its wake with a respectable 19% of the vote is the large and somewhat terrifying statue of former Chelsea and Ghana midfielder Michael Essien.

Boasting the pointiest elbow in the world, strangely alien-like facial features and a Michelin Man-style body, it is difficult to understand how it was ever commissioned.

But it was, and it now stands as a tribute to Essien in his homeland whether he likes it or not. 

As seems to be the case with most of these attempted likenesses, Sven-Goran Eriksson's sculpture is accidentally - or perhaps intentionally - fear-inducing. 

Taking its pride of place in Sweden - and only a few votes behind Essien in our poll - the statue at least bears some resemblance to the former England coach. Yet there is something devious and haunting about the smile on his face and the shine emanating from his gleaming bald forehead.

Luis Suarez's Uruguayan tribute, meanwhile, was less scary than simply bad. It really is awful, and there's not much more to say about it. 

Equally as bad was the bronze sculpture of Diego Maradona on display in Kolkata, although it was deemed the least bad - some achievement - in our poll with a mere 5% of the vote. The statue, which more accurately resembled Susan Boyle than it did the Argentine icon, was at the centre of inevitable ridicule on social media.

There was also the depiction of Alexis Sanchez in Tocopilla, Chile, which was just about respectable enough to avoid such online hysteria.