10 football players who became politicians

All eyes are now on the 2024 US presidential election, but have you ever wondered which football players have crossed over into politics?

As US voters choose between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (neither of whom, of course, were professional athletes, although in a 1990s broadcast Trump did admit to playing football in high school), TEAMtalk took a look at football players from other countries who became politicians.

Here at TT we always cover the latest action involving players and coaches, but rarely does it touch the world of politics.

Typically, after retirement, a player becomes an expert or coach or even an agent. translation supervision – but sometimes they have political ambitions that take them into a whole new world.

Some of them were ministers, some were members of parliaments, and some even led their countries as presidents or prime ministers.

Here’s our top ten, starting with the USMNT star’s famous father and including Ballon d’Or and World Cup winners.

George Weah

Winner of the 1995 Ballon d’Or, Weah enjoyed a playing career with teams such as Paris Saint-Germain and Milan. He is without a doubt the best player to ever come out of Liberia and he has led his country.

The father of USMNT international Tim Weah, he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of Liberia in 2005. However, when he ran again in 2017, he received 60% of the vote and was elected president.

His inauguration was attended by Didier Drogba, the former Chelsea striker from Ivory Coast, and Samuel Eto’o, the former Cameroonian striker of Barcelona.

At the end of 2023, Weah lost the presidency after losing by just one percentage point in the next presidential election, the closest in the country’s history.

Gianni Rivera

Gianni Rivera, one of Milan’s best players, won 12 trophies with the Italian club and also won Euro 1968 with his national team.

Rivera retired in 1979 and eight years later became a member of the Italian Parliament for the Christian Democracy party and was re-elected three times.

Later in his political career, between 2005 and 2009, he even became a member of the European Parliament before returning to football with FIFA (Italian Football Association).

Kakha Kaladze

Another player made famous by his time at Milan, Kaladze is the fifth most capped Georgian player of all time, but towards the end of his playing career he was also an avid investor.

Having completed his playing career in 2012, the ex-defender was elected to the Georgian parliament in October of the same year. In fact, he became the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy.

Kaladze resigned from this position in 2017 to run for mayor of Tbilisi and was elected with 51% of the vote. He retained the title with 55% of the vote when re-elected four years later.

Hakan Sukur

Sukur scored the fastest goal in a World Cup match in 2002 for Turkey. The main club in Shukur’s playing career was Galatasaray.

In 2011, three years after retiring, he was elected to the Turkish Grand National Assembly, but resigned from his position in 2013.

In August 2016, the same year he was charged with insulting President Erdoğan on Twitter, Sukur was issued an arrest warrant due to his alleged ties to Fethullah Gülen (who was accused of trying to overthrow Erdoğan, although he denied inciting terrorist attacks of 2016). coup attempt).

Sukur left Turkey a long time ago and moved to the United States, where, among other things, he plans to open a sports academy.

Oleg Blokhin

Blokhin won the Golden Ball in 1975 while playing for Dynamo Kiev. After retirement, he worked as a coach, but entered politics in 1998 when he was elected to the Ukrainian parliament.

In 2002, he was re-elected to a second term.

Romario

One of the best goalscorers of his generation, Romario played for teams such as PSV and Barcelona, and also scored 55 goals for Brazil.

In 2010, he was elected to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. Four years later, he was elected to the Brazilian Senate, receiving the most votes for a candidate from the state of Rio de Janeiro. He remains in this role to this day.

Although he has represented different parties over the years, Romario’s commitment to politics remains the same – even after he came out of retirement earlier this year to play again for former club America-RJ.

Zico

Another of Brazil’s all-time greats, Zico – the 1978 World Cup winner – became his country’s first sports minister in 1990. However, after just 13 months, he left this post due to external pressure.

The same role was later taken on by Brazil’s greatest legend, Pele, who served from 1995 to 1998.

Roman Kosetsky

In the US, Roman Kosecki is best known as a striker who finished his career with Chicago Fire in the late 90s, but the Polish international previously played for the likes of Atlético Madrid and Galatasaray back in Europe.

After his retirement, he became a Member of Parliament for Poland, but later turned his attention back to football, running for another presidency, the Polish Football Association. He lost to another ex-player, Zbigniew Boniek, who nevertheless appointed him vice president of youth development.

Kai Leo Johannesen

You may not have heard too much about Kai Leo Johannesen as a player – he spent his entire career in the Faroe Islands and only capped his low-ranked country four times – but he is just one of two men who have both played for the national team . of his country and become its official leader (the second is Weah).

A goalkeeper during his playing days (in fact he was also an active handball player), during which he also served briefly on the Tórshavn city council, Johannesen became Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands between 2008 and 2015.

In the October 2011 elections, he received more personal votes than any other Faroese candidate ever (although this record was later broken when he was defeated in the 2015 elections).

Honorable Mentions

As mentioned earlier, Pelé succeeded Zico as Brazil’s sports minister and was also already a UN ambassador, and Brazil even had a law named after him.

Former Chelsea and Milan striker Andrei Shevchenko moved to Ukraine – Forward! party in 2012, but they did not win a single constituency.

Former Belgian international and head coach Marc Wilmots, whose former clubs included Standard Liege and Schalke, sat on the Belgian Senate between 2003 and 2007.

Albert Gudmundsson, who played for Rangers, Arsenal and Milan in the 1940s, was elected to the Icelandic parliament in 1974 and came third in the race for the presidency in 1980.

Carlos Mac Allister, the father of current Liverpool midfielder Alexis, played for teams such as Boca Juniors before being elected to Argentina’s National Chamber of Deputies in 2013 and becoming sports minister between 2015 and 2018.

Roberto Dinamite scored 20 goals for Brazil and had a brief spell at Barcelona before being elected to the Rio de Janeiro State Assembly following his retirement and becoming a state deputy in 1994.

Finally, Ahmed Ben Bella is known as Algeria’s first president, but he could have made a career in football as he had previously played – just once – for Marseille in 1940 before turning down an offer of a professional contract.