Wellington Phoenix defender Tim Payne has become an overnight sensation, surpassing 5 million followers on social media. The campaign, led by Argentine influencer Valen Scarsini, has made Payne the most-followed football figure in New Zealand history. Payne, a 32-year-old defender, was previously unknown to many, but Scarsini's campaign has turned him into a global phenomenon. Scarsini, known as El Scarso on Instagram, combed through the official squad lists of all participating nations to find the least-known player at the 2026 World Cup. He found his muse in Payne, a reliable and relatively unheralded veteran with 50 caps to his name. Scarsini issued a simple directive to his millions of Spanish-speaking followers: create an internet legend. The campaign went viral with spectacular speed, with Scarsini's original videos amassing six million combined views across TikTok and Instagram. The movement gained corporate and cultural scale when Latin music producer Bizarrap amplified the campaign to his 19.4 million followers. The payoff was staggering, with Payne's Instagram following instantly exploding from a modest 4,700 to more than one million, leaving New Zealand's top sporting icons and political figures in his digital wake. He now has a larger audience than New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, and even the official accounts of New Zealand Football and the Wellington Phoenix combined. Payne now has his own anthem with a surprisingly catchy chorus of 'no Payne, no gain'. Meanwhile, thousands of fans began uploading photographs of Payne's official Panini World Cup sticker. His latest Instagram posts have been flooded with tens of thousands of comments from Latin American fans who have christened themselves 'The Payniacs'.