WAGs: They Score!
Fans Cheer On Soccer Stars' Better Halves

By Karla Adam
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, August 9, 2007

LONDON, Aug. 8 -- They stand accused of doing little more than plunking down their fellas' plastic for designer labels, pampered holidays and ridiculously large handbags -- and large swaths of the British public love them for it.

Welcome to the world of the WAGs: the "wives and girlfriends" of England's soccer stars, without whom the British tabloids apparently couldn't publish. They are celebrated for their epic proportions of vanity and special knack for poolside posing. Some of the WAGs have talent beyond shopping or suntanning, but this is generally swept aside by the press, which prefers to scrutinize their saucer-size sunglasses or teeny-tiny shorts.

The undisputed queen of the WAGs is Victoria Beckham. She earned the rank at her purple-themed 1999 wedding to David Beckham, at which the couple memorably sat on his-and-hers thrones in an Irish castle. Victoria, the former Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, evidently did not accompany her husband to Washington for his team's MLS game Thursday against D.C. United, but she probably won't miss much: The star, nursing a bad ankle, is considered unlikely to play before the sellout crowd at RFK Stadium.

When the Beckhams -- or Posh and Becks as they are known over here -- announced in January that they were relocating to Los Angeles, where Beckham would play for the Galaxy, a wave of anxiety swept through the British tabloids: How would the British WAGs stack up against those in L.A.? Are American WAGs equally capable of dropping the GDP of a small country in an afternoon shopping spree? Did they tan on a daily basis?

A smattering of pictures soon appeared, comparing and contrasting transatlantic hairdos and handbags. The Mail on Sunday newspaper concluded that the California wives were "stay-at-home girls who dress in 'ordinary clothes' " and that they had "not a Chloe dress, a Prada handbag or a Manolo Blahnik shoe between them."

WAGs enjoy no comparable status in the United States, unless one of them does something extraordinary and/or outrageous to merit coverage. But the nonstop media attention paid in America to the likes of Britney, Paris and Lindsay provides a rough equivalent, especially in the ratio of column inches to degree of talent.

Max Clifford, a public relations agent in Britain who represents many famous people, described the British obsession with WAGs as a sort of Cinderella phenomenon: young girls witnessing ordinary women shoot to stardom simply through association.

"If you ask young girls here what they want, it's to be famous -- and anyone can be famous if you happen to be with the right footballer," said Clifford,

employing the term that everyone on the planet outside the United States uses instead of "soccer player."

WAGs are an extension of Britain's love affair with the sport, Clifford added: "The magazines are better off with them than without them. It's very empty and meaningless, but it's a little relief, and youngsters will read it."

For some, it's a lifetime achievement. Abigail Clancy, the on-again, off-again girlfriend of soccer player Peter Crouch, once told television producers that she wanted to "marry a footballer, get pregnant and then shop and have fun." On the reality show "Big Brother," a Posh look-alike recently declared in no uncertain terms that "I want to be a WAG," adding astutely that "you can get a career from there."

Not that WAGs are universally admired. In a series of interviews with young women on a recent afternoon in London, almost all of them had mixed emotions about Posh and "her ladies in waiting," as they are sometimes called.

"Victoria Beckham tries the hardest of the WAGs, and you have to give her credit for staying slim for so long," said Oliya Kalashnikova, 22, a student who was balancing a stack of celebrity magazines at a central London

bookstore. "They set a bad example that women are just there to look beautiful. But I do like to flick through magazines and have a look at what they are wearing."

"No one can relate to Posh, and I am not quite sure why I like looking at pictures of her. Coleen" -- that's Coleen McLoughlin, fiancee of footballer Wayne Rooney and dubbed "super WAG" by the press -- "is much more likable as the girl next door," said Joanna Bevis, a 25-year-old fashion buyer from London. "It's quite pathetic we like looking at their pictures just because they are married to someone famous."

"WAGs" entered the Collins English Dictionary in June, but trickled into pub conversations last year during the soccer World Cup when the WAGs -- in this case, accompanying the English national team -- stormed into Germany and displayed heroic feats of purchasing and clubbing. Receipts from their extravagant exploits were found and printed, prompting the Spanish press to howl: "Hooligans with Visa cards."

One WAG famously danced on a table and sang "I Will Survive" in the wee hours of the morning. When hotel management erected poolside privacy screens to shield them from the paparazzi, the WAGs asked that they be taken down.

Naturally, celebrity endorsements followed.

Last month four English soccer stars married in one weekend, sparking a near meltdown for celebrity magazines, not to mention the hassle for the guests who had to helicopter from one event to the next. Television has caught the bug, too, with a popular drama series called "Footballers' Wives," widely thought to be inspired by Victoria Beckham, and "Wags Boutique," a reality show that saw two teams of WAGs set up rival boutiques.

Unsurprisingly, not every WAG welcomes the term and its horribly reductive implications. Speaking to the Sun, Cheryl Cole, a singer for the band Girls Aloud and married to footballer Ashley Cole, scoffed at the World Cup scene: "It's like, 'Who's got the best watch on, who's got the best bag, which wife is dressed the best, which wife's got the best hair?' " She exclaimed: "I've got my own career!"

Others, like Coleen McLoughlin, famed for her "real-life curves," are proud WAGs, thank you very much. The 21-year-old lives with Rooney, arguably Britain's most talented soccer player, and writes a magazine column called "Welcome to my World!," in which she details her latest outings and rationales behind her outfit choices.

It turns out the moniker is quite useful off the soccer field as well. So, for example, when the former British foreign secretary used to travel with her 79-year-old husband, the Sunday Times felt justified in calling him "the political equivalent of a WAG." And of course there's an endless stream of spinoffs, including NAGS, the mothers-in-law of soccer players; WWAGS, the Wimbledon Wives and Girlfriends; and SWAGS, the (G8) Summit Wives and Girlfriends.

Clifford, the publicist, had some advice for Beckham's new American fans: "It's almost like a cult. Be thankful you don't have it over there."