There was a time when a football World Cup was just about 22 men kicking a ball, but in an era where the leading players are paid telephone number salaries for their skills, their trappings of wealth are often the centre of great attention too.
When a major tournament like this is taking place, there is a particular focus on the wives and girlfriends - or WAGs - who have travelled to watch their men in action. While sometimes these can produce lots of memes (just ask Harry Maguire) and even conflicts (The Wagatha Christie affair of Rooney V Vardy), often the attention is on the ostentatious trappings of wealth they are sporting.
Not surprisingly, jewellery features high on the latter list. There can be any number of glittering earrings, necklaces, and rings with rocks to rival Gibraltar being sported by the partners of some stars. But is such largesse really necessary for a lady to look stylish and smart?
Perhaps not surprisingly, it is the WAG of the most high-profile player at the tournament who has taken centre stage. Cristiano Ronaldo has never been one to shun the limelight and his recent on-field travails have led to him generating plenty of headlines off it with the help of Piers Morgan. But his partner Georgina Rodriguez is no shrinking violet either.
This has been shown by a recent Instagram post where she showed off her jewellery - worth a cool £2 million - part of a pattern of high-profile actions that has led the Sun to compare her to Kim Kardashian.
However, the simple truth is that one does not need to be a WAG to wear delightful, stylish jewellery, such as a Swarovski Crystal Bee Brooch.
Not only is this product within the budgets of people who don’t earn millions every month, but many would argue it is stylish in a way so many things worn by the WAGs are not; its beauty lies in design, colour and style, not the huge size of the in-your-face gems so often worn by those attached to high earners.
Having loads of mega-expensive jewellery paid for by footballer’s wealth is, arguably, not exactly all it’s cracked up to be anyway.
In particular, it has made many players’ homes targets for burglars seeking such riches, with the latest high-profile instance being the theft of around £300,000 worth of jewellery and watches from the home of England player Raheem Sterling, who flew home to his young family after the incident but is now back in Qatar.
Times have certainly changed, of course, from when England’s 1966 World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore was actually accused of a jewellery theft himself before the 1970 tournament in Mexico. But the bottom line is that spending huge money on sparkly things does not mean they really make the WAGs look any better.
The fact is that a delightful Swarovski Crystal item provides lots of luxury and elegance itself, especially when worn alongside high quality cashmere clothing. That combination is more than stylish enough - and it shouldn’t take a ‘Wagatha Christie’ to work that out.
