simple singleton example in c++

I am trying to implement singleton that I have used before in PHP and Java 8, to C++. But I do face certain restrictions from the syntax and how C++ works (specifically pointers).

This is what I have tried so far:

#include "iostream"

using namespace std;

class System{
protected:
    static System *obj;

public:
    static System *getInstance(){
        return obj;
    }

    void prn(){
        cout<<"this works!";
    }
};

int main(void){
    System &sys = System::getInstance();
    sys.prn();
}

while executing, I get the following error:

 sameer.cpp:20:10: error: non-const lvalue reference to type 'System'
 cannot bind
       to a temporary of type 'System *'
         System &sys = System::getInstance();
                 ^     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please help me solve this error.. as I have no idea what it means. I have checked the forum before posting, and it can be a possible duplicate of previously asked question (which I caould not find).. But I posted this because I wanted to understand the meaning of error my code generated.

Thanks for the help