When football gets too fashionable

But maybe Wilshere, Giroud, Özil et al will escape the hex of the Spice Boys. For over the past couple of decades the footballing landscape and its culture have altered more radically than Cardiff City’s home strip. Twenty-one years of the Premier League and the gazillions brought by TV money, image rights and sponsorship deals have wrought a peculiar and possibly unforeseeable sea change. A while back, footballers were working-class kids who suddenly had more money than they’d ever dreamed of and were happy to spend it on anything that took their fancy. But now, as the money and the global exposure have grown exponentially, a flash car, some high-quality threads, champagne for the ever-present entourage and a house for your mum aren’t quite enough. It’s partly the contrast; as the world has tightened its belt over the past few years, top-flight football has simply loosened the ostrich leather encircling its already impressive waist. But it’s also the tendency of wealth to envelop and absorb everything it touches, and evidence of the current obsession with poshing and pimping and premiuming up life. For global glamour purposes, it’s no good if footballers look like they’ve won the pools; far better that they look like princes, film stars, heroes — paradoxically in possession of both a convincing rags-to-riches back story and yet thoroughly to the manner born.

The new footballer’s blue-chip, on-trend look is a world away from those massive tie-knots you used to see either neatly constructed (going into court) or fantastically skew-whiff (coming out of Faces in Gants Hill). One might, of course, raise an eyebrow that a member of the English Premier League should look over the Channel for its formalwear but ouf! — so it goes. And they do have a French (or at least Alsatian) manager, even if his chill-busting touchline quilted coat is unlikely to make very many must-have garment lists.

In putting on their best bib and tucker, Arsène Wenger’s red-and-white army also backs up the idea that football is increasingly coming to resemble other, more middle-class sports in its love of formalwear. Think of the flannels and blazers of cricketers, and chances are you’ll think of Nick Compton and Alastair Cook modelling for Kent & Curwen; think, too, of the purple-and-green trim of the Wimbledon officials, the top hats of equestrianism. (Those who remember the 2004 ‘unitards’ of the Cameroon national squad, quickly outlawed by FIFA for not fulfilling separate-item regulations, pipe down.)

We can only hope it doesn’t go too far; let not sober suiting and timeless elegance undergo a kind of sartorial mission creep. One of the incidental delights of following football is spying its preening stars in their off-duty garb; to wit, there are many things that we miss about Italian striker Mario Balotelli, recently returned to Serie A, but one of them is definitely his fondness for eccentric headgear. His giant knitted chicken hat was perhaps his crowning glory; one struggled to know how he fitted it into his camouflage Bentley. For every dapper David Beckham, who ten years on from the corn rows and sarongs can do no wrong, Juan Mata, who graced the recent launch of the Hackett store, or immaculate Frank Lampard in his smart Dolce suits and casual Dsquared2 clothes, there is a correspondingly more ‘creative’ dresser; a brocade-jacketed Lionel Messi, for example, or a shiny suited Ashley Cole. Chief among those offending the fashion gods is Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who has just launched an eye-popping range of underwear, CR7; suffice to say that it leaves little to the imagination, but at least he’s not wearing one of his extraordinary ‘outfits’. His maroon satin tux with jeans, or his hot pink shorts teamed with vest and trilby, will linger long in the memory. And not in a good way.

Footballers’ enthusiasm for restocking their wardrobes every payday (ie, every day) has not gone unnoticed by high-end retailers keen to capture their loose change. Witness the tech-savvy efforts of Harvey Nichols, which recently launched an invitation-only private Twitter feed, so that its biggest male spenders could get tip-offs about new arrivals in store.

But perhaps it was ever thus. As demonstrated by The Class of ’92, the recently released film about Man United’s team of all-conquering wunderkind, swanking about off the pitch takes its toll; David Beckham notwithstanding — and Victoria, the sarongs and Sam Taylor-Wood’s vision of him asleep were still a way off — Fergie’s kids were a fairly unshowy bunch. For Giggs, Scholes, Butt and Nevilles P and G, the hairdryer treatment was something to be avoided rather than booked in at a fancy-schmancy salon. The team’s most memorably eccentric piece of clothing? That Starsky and Hutch-style chunky belted cardigan favoured by Cantona, football’s philosopher-king.

In the 1960s, George Best did not confine his off-pitch activities to drinking champagne in nightclubs with a succession of beautiful women. He also went into business with his great pal, Manchester City’s Mike Summerbee, to open a series of boutiques with names such as Rogue and Edwardia. Put aside the fact that George was once snapped in a sombrero on the way home from beating Benfica, the rest of the time he was the epitome of style, a dedicated follower of fashion. And a visit to the King’s Road wasn’t the same unless you spotted one of Chelsea’s on-trend team members, such as Alan Hudson and Peters Osgood and Bonetti.

One other thing happened in the 1960s, of course; England won the World Cup. The team did not feature Best, who played for Northern Ireland, nor Peter Osgood, whose lifestyle did not meet with the approval of strait-laced manager Alf Ramsey. With the exception of Bobby Moore, you’d search for a while to find the glamour in that team, and certainly longer than you’d have to look for goals. Both Team England, as it faces Italy and Uruguay and Costa Rica, and the red team from N5, currently on course to win its first title for seven years, should take note. ES