There has always been some sort of a link between music and football – a working class sport and a working class sound going hand in hand through style and footballing culture isn’t a difficult to imagine – but now that link is growing.

In fact, it’s growing quickly and into a very new direction. Footballers may have always been style icons – think George Best and plenty of other playboy footballers through the ages – but now they are more and more becoming social media icons. And in that sense, they are right in the same boat as the musicians and actors who share the same space and influence the same audience.

One example jumps out above all else these days, of course. Paul Pogba, the world’s most expensive footballer, Adidas athlete and all round bruising sporting brand can barely stay out of the coverage of business, culture and social media when it has a sporting bent. This week it’s no different – just one Instagram post is enough to get people talking:

Having fun with my bro new celebration ????????????@jesselingard @tfosumensah51 #happy #blessed #pp

A video posted by Paul Labile Pogba (@paulpogba) on Jan 31, 2017 at 6:38am PST

Recently, music streaming app Deezer signed up Barcelona and Pogba’s own Manchester United and Spotify have signed a deal with Borussia Monchengladbach, and now Apple – the biggest brand in the world – are getting involved by pairing their Apple Music product with German footballing juggernaut Bayern Munich.

It makes a reference to the link between football and style, footballers and the sort of cool celebrity image many of them cultivate, and the activation makes sense too.

One of the major reasons football has grown in the direction it has over the past decade has been social media. Whilst journalists and others lament a bygone age of footballers being accessible and available for interviews and features, fans have almost never felt closer to their heroes. Following every inch of their lives on Twitter and Instagram, fans, conversely, get as close as most journalists do these days.

With Bayern Munich players to create Apple Music playlists, this is just another step towards fans getting closer to players on social media.