FC Barcelona promote Wigan Warriors' game to their 44 MILLION Twitter followers

Hours after Lionel Messi's moment of magic, FC Barcelona helped promote Wigan's game at Camp Nou with a tweet to the club's 44 MILLION followers.

They posted a graphic featuring Zak Hardaker and Catalans' Sam Tomkins under the headline: "It will be epic."

Adrian Lam's side clash with the Challenge Cup holders in a historic Super League clash on Saturday, May 18.

The @FCBarcelona Twitter account has 29.5m followers - to put that into perspective, Man United have 19m, Liverpool 11m, New England Patriots 4.5m and New York Yankees 3.4m.

And they backed that up with a tweet from their Spanish account, @FCBarcelona_es, to its 14.1m followers; a combined total of nearly 44m.

Wigan Warriors have 115,000 and Catalans 29,500 Twitter followers.

The timing of their first tweet couldn't have been much better - less than a day after Messi had scored a stunning freekick in a 3-0 Champions League victory against Liverpool.

Catalans hope Barca's help in promoting the match will help them draw a Super League record crowd of more than 25,000.