5 Footballers Who Tried Singing And Failed

World Cup 2018 has officially kicked off. This of course means that many other news and events take a temporary back seat to the festivities of people waving England fans, shouting "Come on England!" in increasingly desperate tones and deluding themselves into thinking that England will win the World Cup if they move past the group stages. Part of the experience of the tournament is also the music.

Most of the time when novelty world cup songs or football songs in general are made, they are made by professional musicians and performed by well-known singers or celebrities. However, on occasions footballers have tried their hand at crooning too. Often with quite poor results. Today we're going to have a look at some of the more bizarre and terrible examples of this.

In no particular order we have:

Sergio Ramos (2016)

There's very little argument about Sergio Ramos' prowess on the pitch, however when it comes to singing there's no amount of pitch tuning possible to make him sound good. Even if you can't understand the Spanish lyrics we can all agree he will not be winning any Grammies soon. The video is also just plain awkward as it seems clear Iniesta would rather be anywhere else but recording the. Still at least we can think ourselves lucky that Shakira and Pique haven't tried to release a duet.

Paul Gascoigne (1990)

Gazza is known for his eccentricity (ask anyone who's ever lived in Newcastle and remember, if Gazza invites you for a drink, never EVER say yes) and this is a good example of it. During what was probably the height of Gazzamania in the early 1990s the Geordie midfielder inexplicably decided to release a remake of Lyndisfarne's ode to his hometown: Fog On the Tyne. No one expected Gazza to be a good singer and weren't surprised that he wasn't, despite singing lyrics about sausage rolls fitting his character pretty well. Also the less said about his follow up single Geordie Boys the better.

Ian Wright (1993)

Do the Right Thing (you see what Ian did there?) is the debut, and apparent swansong, to the former Arsenal and Crystal Palace player's singing career. To be fair to him he isn't a bad singer, although the spoken word part of the song is hideous. Unfortunately for the aspiring Wright, the track was a forgettable dance single even by early 1990s standards. The song and video now look like a pitch-perfect modern-made parody of Britain in the 1990s. Sadly, I can no longer look anyone born after 2000 in the eye and excuse the 90s now, so well done for destroying my childhood Ian! Which brings me nicely onto the next entry on the list.

Kevin Keegan (1979)

I didn't grow up in the 1970s but this is horrific. I'm not sure why people would ever want to hear Keegan sing a love ballard but we've got it anyway. From his hairstyle to the cheesy disco symphony this is the perfect thing to demonstrate to your older relatives that the late 70s were not as amazing as they remember them to be. No amount of Spangles, Clackers and Choppers can excuse this mess. At least Keegan himself can look back at this and say that his dismal tenure as England manager wasn't the worst thing he did.

John Barnes (1990)

The appearance of John Barnes on this list is bound to be a controversial choice, as the value of  Barnes' rapping on the 1990 New Order song World In Motion is based purely on its novelty. It's not well written or a particularly well performed rap section. John Barnes is no Stormzy (which would have been pretty amazing if he had been) and that's ok, as the end result is something magnificent and iconic despite Barnes' lack of natural flow. The whole song however is easily the best one on this list and truly deserves its place as one of the one of the top English World Cup songs of all time.



There doesn't seem to be much hype around the music of World Cup 2018 (which should come as no surprise as the official song is generic and forgettable). As for the England team, it's probably never had a better anthem than Three Lions, or Fat Les's parody of football culture. In both cases they are now 20 years old and nothing seems to have come close to replacing them.