It’s a well-known fact that footballers are sexy. A combination of their physical prowess, physique, and net worth all work together to get the hearts of the nation throbbing. Not to mention the good looks a lot of footballers are blessed with.
Here at Ticketgum, we sought to investigate which retired footballers are the sexiest. They may be off the pitch, but are they still running through the nation’s mind?
To find out, we looked at a range of attributes, including net worth, strength, Tweets about them and the golden ratio. Taking these factors into account, a sexiness score was given to each to determine which retired football is the sexiest of all time.
Let’s dive in and see who takes the crown.
The top 10 sexiest retired footballers
The Full Results
| # | Celebrity | Year Retired | Strength | Net Worth ($ millions) |
Height (metres) |
Mentions of Sexy Tweets (%) | Mentions of Sexy Emojis (%)
(😍😘💋🥵🥰❤) |
Golden Ratio (%) | Score (/ 10) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniele De Rossi | 2020 | 78 | 25 | 1.84 | 8.33% | 4.53% | 84.85% | 8.573 |
| 2 | Nemanja Vidic | 2016 | 91 | 14 | 1.9 | 4.56% | 2.49% | 80.70% | 7.801 |
| 3 | Francesco Totti | 2017 | 75 | 60 | 1.8 | 7.44% | 3.73% | 78.61% | 7.7085 |
| 4 | Gareth Bale | 2023 | 76 | 145 | 1.86 | 5.64% | 2.15% | 76.83% | 7.4175 |
| 5 | Roy Keane | 2006 | 86 | 60 | 1.8 | 6.23% | 0.70% | 81.49% | 7.081 |
| 6 | David Beckham | 2013 | 77 | 450 | 1.83 | 7.92% | 3.54% | 69.49% | 6.983 |
| 7 | Pablo Zabaleta | 2020 | 69 | 18 | 1.76 | 10.01% | 2.11% | 79.68% | 6.873 |
| 8 | Martin Skrtel | 2022 | 89 | 12 | 1.91 | 3.58% | 1.18% | 81.96% | 6.824 |
| 9 | Wayne Rooney | 2021 | 87 | 170 | 1.76 | 4.07% | 1.61% | 78.21% | 6.708 |
| 10 | Mario Gomez | 2018 | 86 | 25 | 1.89 | 4.77% | 1.91% | 74.47% | 6.5765 |
1. Daniele De Rossi: 8.6/10
In first place on our list, and the sexiest retired footballer, is Daniele De Rossi. This Italian former midfielder scored highly across the board to give him his final score of 8.6 out of 10. While his physical strength isn’t the best attribute on our list (78), he has a relatively high net worth ($25 million) and an impressive 84.85% match to the golden ratio – the highest of all retired footballers in our top 10 – awarding him first place.
2. Nemanja Vidic: 7.8/10
Nemanja Vidic comes second on our list with a score of 7.8 out of 10. The Serbian ex-centre-back made waves when he played for Manchester United, as well as the Serbian national team. His physical strength is the highest in our top 10 (91), which is hardly surprising. He is considered one of the greatest defenders of all time, after all.
3. Francesco Totti: 7.7/10
In third place we have the second Italian on our list, Francesco Totti, with an overall score of 7.7 out of 10. While his physical prowess is the second lowest in our top 10 (75), he makes up for this with a high net worth of $60 million, and a 78.61% match to the golden ratio.
4. Gareth Bale: 7.4/10
Coming a hair’s breadth behind Francesco Totti is Gareth Bale. The Welsh former winger famously played for Tottenham Hotspur, based in England’s Premier League, and Spain’s top-flight league La Liga, playing for Real Madrid.
Bale securing fourth with a sexiness score of 7.4 out of 10 is, for the most part, due to his impressive net worth of $145 million, and his high percentage match to the golden ratio (76.83%) in our index study.
5. Roy Keane: 7.1/10
Scoring 7.1 out of 10 is Roy Keane – one of the most successful Irish football players of all time. In our study, Keane’s strength (86), percentage match to the golden ratio (81.49%), and fortune of $60 million accumulated in a respectable score of 7.1, crowning him the fifth sexiest retired footballer of all time.
6. David Beckham 6.9/10
With an overall score of 6.9 out of 10, David Beckham is crowned the sixth sexiest retired footballer in our study. Some may be surprised that he doesn’t appear higher on this list, but the numbers don’t lie…
Despite being a footballing superstar and model, his physical strength (77) and percentage match to the golden ratio (69.49%) are surprisingly low. However, he gained points in our study for his impressive net worth of $450 million, which exceeds the other nine retired footballers in our top 10 by a significant margin.
7. Pablo Zabaleta: 6.9/10
The seventh sexiest retired footballer is the Argentine former right-back Pablo Zabaleta, with a score of 6.9 out of 10. While his strength is the lowest of all footballers in our top 10 (69), his high percentage match to the golden ratio (79.68%), and 10% of Tweets about Zabaleta being about his sexiness – the highest percentage in our study – result in a spot in our top 10.
8. Martin Skrtel: 6.8/10
In eighth place, and scoring 6.8 out of 10, is Martin Skrtel. The former professional footballer, player and captain of the Slovakia national team and Liverpool, has the second-highest strength level in our top 10 (89) and a high match to the golden ratio (81.96%). However, he was sadly let down by his relatively low net worth of $12 million, which is the lowest in our study.
9. Wayne Rooney: 6.7/10
Wayne Rooney is a lot like Marmite. Love him or hate him, Wayne scored 6.7 out of 10, crowning him the ninth sexiest retired footballer according to our study.
Rooney’s overall score was largely let down by having one of the lowest percentage matches to the golden ratio (78.21%), and measuring 1.76cm – the smallest height in our top 10, joint with Zabaleta. However, his high net worth of $170 million was a large contributor in his score and position in the top 10.
10. Mario Gomez: 6.6/10
In the final spot on our top 10 list, and scoring 6.6 out of 10, is the German former striker Mario Gomez, rounding off the top 10 sexiest retired footballers of all time. Mario’s score is just 0.1 points behind Wayne Rooney but, unfortunately for Mario, his low net worth ($25 million) and percentage match to the golden ratio (74.47%) means he only reached the tenth spot.
The top 5 retired footballers with the highest net worth
Professional footballers are often paid astronomical amounts, depending on their team and league. As well as this, footballers are also prime targets for other revenue streams, such as brand deals and paid advertisements, so it’s no wonder footballers can be some of the wealthiest people on the planet.
We sought to find out which retired footballers have made the most of their opportunities and amassed the greatest net worth.
1. David Beckham: $450 million
It comes as no surprise that David Beckham is incredibly wealthy. With a long and lucrative footballing career and modelling contracts, Beckham reportedly has a net worth of around $450 million, which should see him right for many years to come.
2. Wayne Rooney: $170 million
Wayne Rooney is one of the most debated footballers out there. Whether you find him gorgeous or not, everyone can agree that the $170 million he has is an incredibly attractive feature.
3. Gareth Bale: $145 million
Taking the third spot is Wales’s Gareth Bale. The football superstar made a significant amount during his time as a footballer and, in his retirement, has shown he is a dab-hand when it comes to investing. Despite being teetotal, he became a shareholder in Welsh whisky firm, Penderyn Distillery, in 2022. All of his exploits together give Gareth Bale a net worth of $145 million.
4. Thierry Henry: $130 million
The fourth wealthiest retired footballer on our list is Thierry Henry. Widely regarded as one of the best strikers of all time, let alone in his generation, Henry clearly made the most of his opportunities as a professional footballer and pundit in recent years. As a result, his net worth is reportedly an eye-watering $130 million.
=5. Mesut Özil and Zinedine Zidane: $120 million
In joint fifth place are ex-attacking midfielders Mesut Özil and Zinedine Zidane, who both famously played for Real Madrid. Both retired players have amassed an impressive net worth of $120 million each, most notably joining an investment group once in retirement and investing in real estate, respectively.
The retired footballers that most closely fit the golden ratio
The golden ratio is a mathematical equation that can denote attractiveness. When certain features are in the right proportion and ratio to each other, they are ultimately more pleasing to the eye. As part of our search for the sexiest retired footballer, we identified which football retirees had the most ‘mathematically’ perfect face.
1. Keisuke Honda
In first place, the retired footballer that most closely matches the golden ratio is Keisuke Honda. With a percentage match of 86.08%, the Japanese former attacking midfielder is less than 14% away from having a mathematically perfect face.
2. Daniele De Rossi
Just pipped to the top spot is Daniele De Rossi. Known for playing for his hometown of Roma in the Serie A, he was also part of the team that saw Italy win a FIFA World Cup. Football’s sexiest retiree also matches extremely close to the golden ratio, at 84.85%.
3. Sergio Agüero
In third place is Sergio Aguero. This former footballer played as a striker for his home country of Argentina and (most famously) England’s Manchester City, and is widely considered to be one of the best footballers of all time. Not only is he a gifted athlete, but he is also blessed with an almost perfect face, with a golden ratio percent match of 84.28%.
4. Martin Skrtel
The fourth position on our list goes to Martin Skrtel. While he landed as only the eighth sexiest retired footballer, it seems he has one of the most mathematically perfect faces, with a golden ratio percentage match of 81.96%.
To find out more about visiting the iconic ground Skrtel called home from 2007 to 20016, check out our comprehensive Anfield stadium guide.
5. Roy Keane
Football’s fifth most sexy retiree also has the fifth most perfect face, according to our study. Roy Keane’s face matches the golden ratio at 81.49%, which means he misses out on fourth place by the skin of his teeth.
Methodology:
- Ticketgum performed a multivariate study to identify the sexiest retired footballer. The research utilises social media analytics consisting of over 3.61 million tweets along with an anthropometric analysis using computer vision algorithms to compute the geometric golden ratio proximity for each footballer.
- Firstly, a seed list of notable retired footballers was used to scrape over 3.61 million tweets dating from 2017 onwards. Tweets were required to contain either the official Twitter handle or the name of each footballer.
- One-hot encoding was subsequently applied to identify tweets containing words, as well as emojis, synonymous with sexy. The resulting dataset was aggregated to compute the percentage of all tweets containing sexual references as well as the average number of likes for those tweets.
- Images required for the computation of the geometric golden ratio proximity for each footballer were then collected. The inherent face variability from a multitude of confounding factors including varying expressions, illuminations and poses increase entropy within our model. The relative impact of such factors is controlled and mitigated through strict photo selection criteria ensuring a standardised sample of 3 images per person. These criteria include photos with good lighting on both sides of the face, taken from the front with a regular smile or neutral facial expression.
- A computer vision algorithm was then used to identify facial landmarks of prominent facial features. Subsequently, ratios between the computed landmarks were then used to approximate the geometric golden ratio of each image. Each celebrity’s golden ratio approximation was then determined as the average ratio across all samples for that celebrity.
- Estimated net worth and height were obtained for each player from multiple sources. The strength of each player was obtained from FIFA Career Mode stats (whichever game they were in most recently). This gives an indication of their overall physical strength.
- The social media analytics along with golden ratio approximations and additional statistics such as height, net worth and strength were used to create an index score out of 10.
