Being 13 and in the throes of when tabloids and social media collaborated to make celebrity gossip more accessible, I was fascinated by a phenomenon known as “The WAGs,” (Wives and Girlfriends of athletes). The Wags are often associated with a luxurious lifestyle consisting of travelling all year round and having the financial freedom to throw on Dior’s latest collections. We imagine WAGs, sitting in fancy apartments, overlooking city skylines. However, what do WAGs actually do? Just show up for their partners’ games’! Simple, right?
The word “WAG” was first used by the staff at Jumeirah Beach Club in 2002 associated with appearances of the England’s National Football Team Partners,. This was followed by iTV launching its own drama – The Footballer’s Wives. Their spotting at Baden-Baden exploded their tabloid presence, and the subsequent lacklustre performance of The England National Football Team at The 2006 FIFA World Cup led to decades of mud-slinging at the partners’ across all sports, often deemed as “gold diggers” or “air-headed” and even “bad luck” to the athletes.
The mid to late 2000s saw the explosion of the media’s focus on WAG culture only in Football but also in Cricket where they came to be known as the “CWAGS” transcending beyond Europe. The CWAGs were equally derided by the media. A notable example of this was when Anushka Sharma, a notable actress in The Indian Film Industry and then girlfriend of Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, met with online abuse for being the cause of her partner’s failure to win The India vs Australia test match was often called a “panauti” (bad luck), prompting them to keep their relationship extremely low-profile for a number of years.
The idea of a WAG having their own identity outside of their partners’ achievements was a foreign concept in spite of them being successful in their own right. Many WAGs have built personal brands before it became a strategy within the mainstream media. Victoria Beckham had her own career as a pop star, being a part of The Spice Girls; Colleen Mclaughlin (now known as Colleen Rooney) had her own partnership with supermarket giant ASDA’s fashion line George. These are the few of many instances where the WAGs’ achievements have been ignored to favour the gender stereotype, leading to a condemnation of the term used to refer to them.
At present there is a sense of vindication as the term “WAG”, was a contentious label to be associated with. Often being seen as just an accessory to their partner, the term has since then been rebranded in the 2020s where individual identities and achievements are acknowledged.
“…My thoughts on the whole WAG thing is that I don’t really class myself as one,” she said. “I have my own identity. I’m not just ‘Mrs Ben Sigmund, footballer’s wife’, and that’s what I think the Wag label takes away.”
She said she was a long way from the stereotypical WAG, which she described as a “kept woman who’s got lots of money and is most likely a drama queen and whose husbands probably cheat on them and – with very few exceptions – are most famous for doing absolutely nothing…”.
Deanna Sigmund, beautician married to Ben Sigmund from the Phoenix Wellington Football Team on being referred to as a WAG in an interview with Stuff in 2015.
The 2020s however, saw a major shift in the perception of WAGs. The air around the label is attributed to the rise of social media and building personal brands. This provides WAGs more avenues of financial freedom and in other cases also allows their partners to consider retirement without worrying about future finances because their partners have their own successful ventures thanks to the digital world getting larger by each passing year. In a feature by Stephanie McNeal, Chanen Johnson – content creator and wife of New Orleans tight end Juvan Johnson, says having her own platform which can support finances can also allow her husband to be a stay-at-home dad to her own kids while she pursues her passions and career, reflecting on how social media has given a sense of fiscal freedom to women while also maintaining an identity of their own.
WAGs belonging to different professions beyond the entertainment industry were treated with multiplied slander with being labelled as “gold diggers” when compared to WAGs working in the limelight. A prominent example of this is Sania Mirza who was India’s first female tennis player but has always been referred to as retired cricket player Shoaib Malick’s wife, minimising her own achievements. Looking at the motorsport world, particularly for F1, The WAGs have been subjected to intense scrutiny where their qualifications have been speculated purely through obsessive decoding of Instagram stories and whether they matched a timeline. This also showcased the fallout of the parasocial relationships associated with the female fans and athletes.
Criticisms of the persisting presence of the athletes’ partners at any sporting events during broadcast still continue as well as commentary on personal lives. Furthermore, WAGs have now begun to face online criticism where people claim they are using their partners to further their online presence and provide additional scrutiny to their personal lives. This can be highlighted through the instance where Kelly Piquet, brazilian model and partner of Formula One driver Max Verstappen released a strongly worded statement on social media against online abuse and internet trolling as a response to allegations made by fans.
The 2020s saw a change in the meaning of a WAG from the 2000s and 2010s. Individuals addressing the partners of athletes rather than their own achievements is just the beginning. The media houses addressing the partners by their profession first and making their association with the athletes secondary along with them using social media to curate content fitting their profession – whether it’s as an influencer or an art curator has changed the landscape of being a WAG. While the label of a WAG still remains, it is losing its sexist connotations, thanks to social media, coming a long way from the streets of Baden-Baden.