Soccer statues
There are thousands of statues of footballers around the world
There are thousands of statues of footballers around the world including more than 12 of Pele and 10 of Diego Maradona. There are 5 of Lionel Messi and only 1 of Cristiano Ronaldo proving who the current GOAT is. China has more statues of footballers than any other country except Britain. In Kepu Park, Shenyang, their 2002 World Cup squad is cast inside a giant bronze V for victory. An overly optimistic icon given that they lost all three games, without scoring a single goal.
Zlatan Ibrahimović is a ridiculously talented Swedish footballer who regularly got into fights with his own team-mates and saw himself as superior to everyone else on the planet. Zlatan trademarked his own name and often refers to himself in the third person. He also paid to send the Swedish intellectually disabled team to the World Football Champs in Brazil, and he has campaigned for world hunger. A three-meter-high statue of Zlatan in Jesus Christ pose outside Malmö FF stadium regularly gets vandalised by Malmö fans who see Zlatan as a traitor for investing in local rivals Hammarby.
David Beckham was pranked by James Corden with this hideous bust in LA.
A 2.5-meter plaster and resin sculpture of Michael Jackson was erected outside Fulham Football Club in 2011. Commissioned by the club's chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed, who was a massive fan and friend of Michael. The Fulham fans were not so enamoured saying, “We're a laughing stock. It has nothing to do with football. It makes the club look silly. Best of all, “He looks a bit constipated.” Sadly, Michael only survived 2 years.
Jack Charlton died in 2020. He was part of England’s famous World Cup-winning team in 1966. As well as being a dominant defender Jack also co-founded the Anti-Nazi League in the 1970s. There are two statues of Jack, one of them at Cork airport holding a fish.
This crazy 5-meter-high sculpture in Paris depicts the moment when Zinedine Zidane headbutted Italian defender Marco Materazzi after he had verbally provoked him in the 110th minute of the 2006 World Cup Final between France and Italy. Zidane received a red card and was sent off. France lost the match, which was Zidane's last game as a professional. To this day no one knows what Marco said.
Peter Crouch was two meters tall and headed more balls than anyone in Europe for five years. And he was the only one that did the robot dance when he scored.
Two-meter Peter is immortalized forever with this beautiful wood carving, unless someone sets it on fire.
Mario Balotelli was described as unmanageable by Jose Mourinho. He fired air pistols in Milan's Piazza della Repubblica. He hung out with Mafia mobsters. He drove into a women's prison in Italy to ‘have a look around’. He set his own house on fire with fireworks. GQ named him the second-best dressed man in the world, and he had a cult following at Manchester City despite a fraught relationship with the club. Mario has a life-sized statue of himself in his Brescia home, but no-one has ever seen it.
I couldn’t find any statues of Robbie Fowler, but you can buy this lovely, framed print from fine art America of all places. Robbie scored loads of goals for Liverpool but will be fondly remembered for the best goal celebration ever. After scoring in the local derby against Everton, he ran to the white line and pretended to snort it. The celebration earned Robbie a four-match ban and a £32,000 fine. The largest fine given to a player at the time.
I doubt if Donald Trump will be funding any statues of Megan Rapinoe when he becomes President, but she deserves one. One of USA’s most talented and longest serving players, Megan was included in Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020. In 2019, fighting to achieve equal pay, she filed a lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation accusing it of gender discrimination. In 2022, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rapinoe has been a longtime advocate for the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports and she has had a hilarious five-year public argument with Donald Trump.
Fox sports unveiled a statue of Megans team mate Alex Morgan before the 2023 Women’s World Cup. An obviously embarrassed Alex said, “You guys, she is big.”
Alan Shearer holds the record for the most goals in the EPL with 260. He was honoured with a brass statue outside St James Park, Newcastle which was kept under wraps until its unveiling.
Fellow prolific striker Gary Lineker tweeted this:
Gary needs a statue too as he seems to be a lovely man, and a great host of Match of the Day. Not afraid to say what he thinks, Gary was suspended by the BBC for criticising the British government's asylum policy. He is intelligent and insightful, and he once did a poo on the pitch in front of fifty thousand people during England’s first game at the 1990 World cup.
Rene Higuita was a radical goalkeeper for Columbia in the 90’s. His nickname was El Loco (The Madman) for his high-risk sweeper-keeper playing style and flair for the dramatic. Famous for inventing the scorpion kick, hanging out with Diego Maradona and Pablo Escobar. Higuita was imprisoned in 1993 after acting as a go-between for drug barons Escobar and Carlos Molina. He delivered the ransom money for the release of Molina's kidnapped daughter and received $64,000 which was illegal in Columbia. Netflix recently made a documentary about him. Rene has this cool little statue by the side of the road in Medellín.
We all know that Cristiano Ronaldo is quite good at football. He is nearing the end of his career and I’m glad he will be remembered forever with this glorious bronze cast.
Luis Suarez is a talented striker from Uruguay, and he is a biter. Inexplicably hungry, his third high-profile biting incident was during the 2014 World Cup. But fans from his hometown of Salto didn’t mind, creating this effigy emphasising his big shiny gnashers.
Perhaps the most creative, edgy, provocative and abstract statue is this one of Mo Salah, prolific goal machine with great hair from Egypt. It’s slightly out of proportion but I think it captures entirely the joy of the beautiful game.
There are no statues of Tottenham’s Richarlison and hopefully there never will be. Charli deserves a mention though for this fantastic tattoo. That’s him in the middle flanked by Brazilian greats Neymar and Ronaldo. Apparently, Neymar offered Charli a huge sum of money to have his face removed.
I couldn’t find any statues of Juan Mata, but someone should make one. Juan was a skillful little midfielder from Spain who launched Common Goal. A charity for the football industry that encourages professional players and coaches to pledge at least one percent of their salaries towards LGBTQ+ inclusion, gender equality, anti-racism, youth health and building peace. Nice one Juan!