From a mannequin, showgirl and social media influencer to a broadcast presenter, soccer agent and even ‘one of the revolutionary girls of the previous 100 years’, Wanda Nara has been solid in lots of guises.
What isn’t unsure is that Nara, a 37-year-old from Argentina who has twice been married to high-profile Serie A stars, is the undisputed queen of footballers’ wives and girlfriends.
The likes of Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy would possibly cross swords on social media or combat it out within the excessive courts, however on the subject of dominating headlines and making waves, Nara is in a league of her personal.
Nara is at present concerned in a bitter divorce battle with Galatasaray striker Mauro Icardi – the newest twist in an on-again, off-again relationship that has been mired in controversy from the outset.
The couple married in 2014, barely six months after Nara left her earlier footballer husband, the previous Barcelona and AC Milan striker Maxi López, amid mutual accusations of infidelity.
And historical past now seems to be repeating itself, with rumours of a budding romance with the Argentinian rapper L-Gante – and a £32 million divorce from Icardi, whom she has accused of gender violence and theft.
Icardi, whose earlier golf equipment embrace Sampdoria, Inter Milan and Paris St-Germain, is at present convalescing in Buenos Aires after struggling a season-ending knee damage.
He has denied Nara’s allegations, telling the Argentinian gossip present Socios del Espectáculo that his spouse ‘twists every little thing for her personal agenda’.
The controversy successfully brings the wheel full circle for the couple, whose relationship started after Nara accused López, her earlier husband, of dishonest on her with their housekeeper.
Regardless of her rigorously cultivated social media picture, Nara has confirmed herself to be an achieved and succesful determine throughout a wide range of disciplines
Wanda Nara is embroiled in a bitter divorce battle with former Inter Milan and PSG footballer Mauro Icardi – the newest twist in a relationship that has lengthy been mired in controversy
Wanda with then husband Maxi Lopez and future husband Mauro Icardi on vacation collectively when the pair have been teammates
Whereas she insisted she didn’t begin relationship Icardi till after the couple have been divorced, López felt betrayed – not solely by Nara but additionally by Icardi, a former Sampdoria team-mate, 9 years his junior, whom he had taken below his wing.
The episode infamously culminated within the ‘Wanda derby’ between Inter Milan and Sampdoria, through which López refused to shake palms with Icardi.
Icardi went on to have the names of López’s three sons – all of whom López and Nara had collectively – tattooed on his arm, presumably in response to complaints from López about his former team-mate posting photos of the kids on-line.
Now Nara, who went on to have two daughters with Icardi, is looking for compensation from the 31-year-old referring to her position as his former agent.
Dubbed the world’s most controversial WAG and the spine of gossip columns from Argentina to Italy and past, Nara has lengthy been a lightning rod for criticism.
Behind all of the sniping and the straightforward caricatures, nevertheless, lies a extra advanced actuality.
As Icardi’s agent, a job she took up in 2016 after the striker ended his enterprise partnership with Spanish agent Abian Morana, Nara single-handedly took on the Italian soccer institution.
‘In Italy, I’m thought of one of the highly effective brokers, like Mino Raiola,’ she declared after only a 12 months within the job. ‘How a lot will I earn? As a lot as a traditional agent. However Mauro and I are married, so what’s his can be mine.’
In a society unaccustomed to footballers’ wives sporting the trousers, Nara’s hardline stance acquired loads of backs up. But her impression was plain.
Wanda usually shares scantily-clad photos to her Instagram account the place she has 16.7M followers
The couple have been married since 2014, however Nara has not too long ago been linked with the Argentinian rapper L-Gante – and a £32 million divorce from Icardi
Nara and Icardi have two daughters, Francesca Icardi Nara, born in 2015, and Isabella Icardi Nara, born in 2016
Pictured: Lopez refused to shake palms with Icardi throughout the notorious ‘Wanda derby’ between Inter Milan and Sampdoria in 2014
Icardi’s wage rose markedly on his spouse’s watch, with a profitable contract extension, signed in October 2016, taking his annual revenue to an estimated £3.7 million a 12 months.
Efficiency-related bonuses promised additional riches, whereas the stability sheet of World Advertising and marketing Soccer, an organization Nara established to handle Icardi’s picture rights and sponsorship offers, turned ever extra sturdy.
But Nara didn’t neglect her personal pursuits. She launched a style line, Wan Assortment, geared toward busy moms.
Her Instagram following grew, outstripping her husband’s (Nara at present has 16.7 million followers to Icardi’s 12.8 million).
And he or she turned a co-presenter and pundit on Tiki Taka, an Italian soccer present.
The final of these roles proved problematic, nevertheless. Feedback made by Nara on TV created uncertainty about Icardi’s future on the San Siro, whereas her criticism of his team-mates brought on division throughout the dressing room.
The state of affairs got here to a head in February 2019, when Icardi was stripped of the Inter captaincy and relegated to the bench after Nara urged the membership ‘to signal somebody able to giving him 5 good balls in each sport’.
Italian soccer was not sluggish to unleash its claws.
Nara has vigorously defended herself from criticism of her position as Icardi’s agent, saying: ”This can be a very macho world, and what I am doing is revolutionary’
In some quarters, Nara’s capacity to boost hackles among the many Italian soccer fraternity solely made her extra admired
Nara has been praised by the Italian author Selvaggia Lucarelli as one of the revolutionary girls of the previous 100 years
‘If my spouse spoke about my team-mates like that in public, I might kick her out of the home,’ snapped Alessandro Costacurta, the previous AC Milan defender, in a remark for which he would later apologise.
‘Wanda Nara speaks each week on TV in regards to the state of affairs of Mauro,’ mentioned Sky Italia’s Matteo Barzaghi.
‘And infrequently she speaks about Inter, about Mauro’s team-mates, and he or she talks about some points that gamers solely know of their dressing room.
‘So many gamers are offended with Mauro, as a result of he does not cease his spouse from speaking.’
Nor did Morana, Icardi’s former agent, waste the chance to take a swipe at his successor.
‘Mauro has misplaced management of his profession,’ mentioned Morana. ‘Wanda is not a consultant.
‘Mauro will do loads higher when he goes again to prominence for what he does on the pitch relatively than the insistent cries for consideration of his agent.’
However Nara was not about to be silenced.
‘This can be a very macho world, and what I am doing is revolutionary,’ she instructed the Italian journal Gente.
‘Though there are various relations who characterize gamers, the position of girls in soccer is extra linked to ‘staying at residence with the youngsters and retaining quiet.’
‘That is why I am a revolutionary. I’ve buddies who’re wives of gamers, and lots of snort at me.
‘They see that what I am doing as unusual, however they’ve requested me to characterize their husbands as a result of they know me, they understand how I act and defend my pursuits.’
Because the controversy performed out, issues turned more and more ugly. Nara was heckled in stadiums. Her automotive was reportedly hit by a rock whereas she was driving. She shed tears on TV.
Giacomo Gallardini, a contract journalist specialising in Italian soccer, believes that whereas Nara might have been responsible of creating ‘smug and calculated statements’ to safe a greater deal for her husband, she was unfairly singled out for being ‘probably the most outstanding feminine determine in a predominantly male world’.
‘She was blamed and accused of being grasping and evil simply due to her gender, as a result of many different brokers have been eager on doing far worse with a view to safe extra money for his or her shoppers,’ mentioned Gallardini.
‘I do not imagine she was handled pretty.
The truth that she has a lavish way of life, that her work introduced her to TV and social media fame, additionally did not assist, as a result of many individuals accused her of being a household breaker with out investigating a lot who was guilty.
‘If the identical had occurred to a male – an agent, or a footballer – the scandal would have been judged in a really completely different means.
Crucially, the beleaguered Nara didn’t again down. Inside months of her ordeal, Icardi was on his method to Paris St-Germain on a season-long mortgage deal that proved the precursor to a £54 million everlasting transfer the next summer time.
Dubbed the world’s most controversial WAG and the spine of gossip columns from Argentina to Italy and past, Nara has lengthy been a lightning rod for criticism
Nara and Icardi celebrated their 10-year anniversary in Might, however Nara has now reportedly filed for divorce
Nara was beforehand married to the previous Barcelona and AC Milan striker Maxi López, just for the connection to interrupt down in acrimony amid mutual accusations of infidelity
Predictably, blame for the entrance man’s departure fell squarely on the shoulders of Nara – an accusation she firmly rebutted.
‘I used to be placing on paper his needs,’ Nara later mirrored. ‘After all, it is simpler guilty a woman, particularly in a sexist world like soccer. Just a few years in the past, I needed to ship a person to exchange me to signal a contract as a result of a membership president refused to take care of a girl.’
In lots of quarters, nevertheless, Nara’s capacity to boost hackles among the many Italian soccer fraternity solely received her extra admirers.
‘There’s something extraordinarily gratifying in watching the panic spreading within the male-dominated soccer galaxy due to Wanda Nara,’ wrote Selvaggia Lucarelli, an Italian journalist and blogger.
Asserting that Nara had ‘footballers, managers, followers, journalists and her husband by the balls’, Lucarelli added: ‘She does not care about gaining credibility and respect with brown dyes and company fits.
In a world the place a girl, at most, can have her say on [Cristiano] Ronaldo in his underwear on Yamamay posters, Nara is among the most revolutionary girls of the previous 100 years.’
Whereas Gallardini wouldn’t go that far – ‘She isn’t a feminist icon,’ he mentioned – he nonetheless believes Nara suffered discrimination.
‘For my part there was a little bit of double commonplace – she was portrayed as a puppet grasp of Icardi’s profession, principally due to her not adhering to the quiet-mother-of-the-children position that WAGs normally have.’
That view is echoed by Alvise Agnazzo, a Serie A specialist and freelance author, who pointed to a tradition of chauvinism within the Italian office.
‘Nara is taken into account a unprecedented lady within the administration of picture and communication inside all Italian media,’ mentioned Agnazzo.
‘The criticisms she has suffered in Italy come up completely from a deeply rooted male chauvinist tradition, jealousy and the same old difficulties that ladies encounter within the “Belpaese” throughout the world of labor.
‘Lovely, elegant and with a smile that always confused her interlocutors, Wanda Nara was an earthquake of feminism in a soccer that solely at the moment, after a few years, is beginning to settle for the position of girls.’
As Nara and Icardi put together to go their separate methods, it shouldn’t go unnoted that we now have been right here earlier than.
Two years in the past, Nara declared the couple have been divorcing earlier than altering her thoughts – one in every of quite a few events on which the connection has appeared to be holed under the waterline solely to get better.
May historical past repeat itself? It appears unlikely. But, with Nara, you simply by no means know.
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