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Football players attract the attention of the whole world to them for their excellent sports performance on the playing field. However, now that we live in the age of social media, the lives of athletes often concern the media and the public outside the four lines.
Almost all football players live and are treated like celebrities, with the result that the spotlight follows them every step of the way and every “scandal” surrounding their name is capable of removing a lot of their shine and stigmatizing them for a long time.
Below we have listed some typical cases that have long occupied the mass media.
John Terry – Wayne Bridge
John Terry, in addition to his amazing performances on the grass with the shirt of Chelsea and the England national team, has also been linked to his extramarital affairs as he has been accused of infidelity many times, however the most characteristic case is that with his teammate and very good of friend Wayne Bridge.
In particular, in 2010, Terry cheated on his wife, Toni Puel, with Vanessa Peroncell, who was then in a relationship with his Chelsea team-mate, Wayne Bridge. When the scandal leaked to the British tabloids, Terry even lost the armband of the captain of the national team and of course a very good friend.
But the situation took extreme proportions when Terry’s wife found out that the English stopper had made Vanessa pregnant, urging her to have an abortion and of course covering all the expenses. Vanessa eventually divorced Bridge, who quit both Chelsea and the England national team once and for all to rid himself of Terry’s presence.
Kevin De Bruyne – Thibaut Courtois
Another case of infidelity between friends and teammates. Kevin De Bruyne was in a relationship for 3 years with Caroline Lichnen. However, she herself admitted in 2014 that she cheated on him with his teammate at both Chelsea and the Belgian national team, Thibaut Courtois.
At that time both footballers belonged to Chelsea but both were playing on loan. During a trip with a friend to Madrid, Caroline met Courtois.
In fact, when the scandal became known, she added fuel to the fire as she declared: “Thibo gave me in one night what I had lacked for three years with Kevin”.
Of course, relations between the two footballers have since cooled completely, with De Bruyne even showing magnanimity and keeping Courtois in the Belgium national team when the team’s then coach asked him how he should handle the matter.
Mauro Icarni – Maxi Lopez
Perhaps the most well-known and celebrated case of fraud among football players. Icardi, before his big transfer to Inter in 2013, was playing for Sampdoria, where he had become very close with fellow Argentinian striker Maxi Lopez, who even acted as a mentor for Icardi.
But their relationship came to be shaken by reports that the young striker and former close friend of Maxi Lopez had an affair with his wife, Wanda Nara. Despite the Argentine claiming he started seeing his former team-mate’s wife after they split, the two tied the knot in 2014, just months after her divorce.
As if that wasn’t enough, Wanda took custody of the children, resulting in Icardi raising Maxi Lopez’s children. Of course, the relationship between the two men is non-existent and in fact, in a match where they were rivals, Lopez avoided shaking hands with Icardi.
For the record, a few years later Wanda also broke up with Icardi.
Ogjen Vranies – Dusko Tosic
The two of them may have never been teammates, but the specific scandal was discussed a lot in our country as Vranies wore the jersey of AEK for almost three years.
The Bosnian stopper had a secret relationship with the international’s wife Serbian football player Dusko Tosicthe singer Gelena Karleoussa. In particular, Tosic found messages of his wife with Vranies.
However, the issue took on even greater dimensions, when the former AEK defender decided to write a long text on social media explaining what exactly had happened. Then Jelena joined the game, who with her own posts and to justify the … unjustified, emptied Vranies, posting messages and various conversations with him, as well as his photos Bosnian central defender with tears in his eyes.
One of the most characteristic incidents of the scandal in question was when Jelena introduced Vranies to her children as a doctor who would treat her while Tosic was away from home.
Ronaldo Nazario – Clarence Seeendorf
It may be that the specific scandal was never proven as no one came out to speak publicly about what happened and also because there was no social media at the time so that the matter could be widely spread, however Italian publications in 2002 reported that Seedorf, Ronaldo’s teammate at Inter, he had become very close to the Brazilian’s wife.
For this reason, in the summer of 2002, Ronaldo left Italy and Inter and moved to Spain and Real Madrid to get away from Seedorf. At the same time, Inter sold the Dutchman to hated rivals Milan, because the scandal had “disturbed” the dressing room.
Ntejan Lovren
And after seeing some cases where footballers were stabbed in the back by teammates and friends, we will also look at some footballers who were stabbed in the back by… strangers.
The Croatian former defender of Liverpool and now of PAOK, Dejan Lovren discovered in 2016 that his wife and mother of their 2 small children, cheated on him with an old friend of hers.
Initially she traveled to her hometown in Zagreb secretly from Lovren where she met her old boyfriend after years and later invited him to England and Liverpool, where they were for a time secretly from Lovren.
His wife then moved to Zagreb to be with her lover, but a few months later she regretted it and returned back to the marital home.
Josip Ilicic
The Slovenian striker, best known for his exploits with Atalanta in Italy, has had a very dark period with a succession of problems.
We are going back to 2020, where the coronavirus had entered our lives for good and quarantines had been imposed everywhere in the world. At the beginning of the pandemic, however, the situation had really gotten out of control in Bergamo, a city in Italy, with the result that many people lost their lives from the virus and even more were hospitalized. The images from Bergamo at that time were bleak.
Ilicic at the same time and due to the reality of the city he lived in at that time combined with the lockdowns that did not allow him to play football, nor to leave the house at all, was diagnosed with depression. In fact, reports state that the lockdowns brought back memories from his childhood where he lived through the war in Bosnia. His father had died in that war.
Having been diagnosed with depression, Ilicic therefore decided to take a break from football and return to his home country, Slovenia, to be close to his wife and their two children. However, his wife Tina Polovina had an even bigger surprise in store for him as again according to reports, the Slovenian striker caught her with another man.
A few days later and as his Instagram was filled with messages of support for him and at the same time abusive messages for his husband, he denied the specific scenarios once and for all. However, the couple seems to have recovered from this adventure as they are still married and together.
Francesco Totti
The Italian legend, the emperor of Rome, one of the best footballers of all time and certainly one of the best Italian footballers, stayed a football life loyal to the club of his heart, Roma, however he did not have the same stability in his off-field life.
Totti divorced his partner Ilari Blasi in July 2022. The two met in 2002 and married 3 years later and had three children together.
He has admitted to suffering from depression when he retired from football in 2017 and when he lost his father to coronavirus in 2020.
Some time later and while he himself was suffering from covid, he was informed that his wife was not so faithful. He then decided to search her cell phone, where he discovered evidence that Ilari had an extramarital affair.
“I had a difficult time, first because I stopped playing and then my father died because of Covid. I also had strong Covid for 15 days. However, my wife, when I needed her the most, was not there,” he said.
“In September of last year the rumors started reaching me: ‘Look, Ilari has another.
“I had never done it (s.s to cheat on her) for twenty years, she had never done it with me either. But when I got warnings from various people whom I trust, I started to get suspicious,” he initially said.
I looked at her cell phone and saw that there was a third person, acting as an intermediary between Hilary and another. Here was the proof (of the relationship). The facts. And that led me to depression.
I could no longer pretend that nothing was happening, but it was no longer me, but someone else,” Totti said of the incident.
The couple finally divorced in July 2022 and since then Totti has had Noemi Bocchi by his side.
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