Most retired footballers look to stay in the sport after they have hung up their boots, be it as managers, coaches, pundits or club ambassadors. Others make a clean break from football altogether, perhaps looking to reinvest their earnings into property or a burgeoning business empire. A small handful of former pros, meanwhile, have opted for an alternative route post-football: politics, of all things.
The latest to tread that unlikely path is Mikheil Kavelashvili, who Manchester City fans may remember from his two-year stint at the club in the mid-1990s. The striker, who won top-tier league titles in three different countries, has swapped goalscoring for vote winning as the leader of the Georgian Dream political party in his native Georgia. And Kavelashvili has plans to follow another former professional footballer into the presidency of their country…
From the Premier League to the Presidency
Mikheil Kavelashvili elected by “ruling” party GD as their presidential candidate.
Mind you, the former Man City forward wasn’t allowed to register for the football federation elections back in 2015 due to him not having a valid diploma.
Heritage… pic.twitter.com/dJeZFa6V37
— Georgian Footy (@GeorgianFooty) November 27, 2024
The political situation in Georgia is rather complex, but the Georgian Dream party want to lean on the notoriety of Kavelashvili as a former Premier League footballer in a bid to win the presidency. He has been installed as the leader of Georgian Dream, which means that if they win the next electoral college vote in December 2024 – as seems likely, then Kavelashvili will almost certainly be unveiled as the country’s next president.
The party won an election back in October to retain control of parliament, although the outgoing president, Salome Zourabichvili, has claimed that the vote was rigged amid accusations of bribery and violence at the ballot box.
Kavelashvili has been praised for his ‘significant contribution to protecting Georgia’s national interests and strengthening the country’s sovereignty,’ which is certainly greater than his contribution to Manchester City, where he scored just three goals in 28 appearances. He did have more success on domestic soil with Dinamo Tbilisi, however, and helped Grasshoppers to win the Swiss Super League during one goal-laden loan spell with the club.
President Weah
It would be fair to describe George Weah as Liberia’s most famous export. The former AC Milan and PSG striker is the only African player to win both the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards. Weah will forever be tagged as one of the best players never to have played at the World Cup, such is the minnow status of Liberia.
But after hanging up his boots, Weah wanted to give back to his country of birth. He retired from football in 2003, but two years later had formed his own political party – the Congress for Democratic Change – and stood for the presidency of Liberia.
Whether voters took him seriously as a politician or not at the time remains to be seen, as Weah lost out at the ballot. But he was determined to see through his dream of becoming president of Liberia, and so Weah stuck to his guns, serving as the senator of the Montserrado County ward from 2014.
In 2017, the former goal machine stood for the presidency again… this time, Weah won by a 62%-38% margin, and was inaugurated as the Liberian president on January 22, 2018 in front of an audience that included Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto’o. He served his full term, before losing to a staggering close 50.64% to 49.36% margin in the 2023 election.
Changing Wings
From one prolific frontman to another, Romário is considered to be one of the greatest footballers of all time, notching more than 700 career goals alongside winning the Golden Ball at the 1994 World Cup and the FIFA World Player of the Year award.
The diminutive striker is an icon in his native Brazil, and so it was no surprise that he was tempted into a career in politics. More surprising, perhaps, is that in the space of just seven years, he went from representing the Brazilian Socialist Party to Podemos, the centre-right group. In football terms, that’s like playing on the left wing before being switched over to the right…
Romário was voted on to the Brazilian Federal Senate in 2014, despite having campaigned against the country hosting the 2014 World Cup – a stance that did not go down well with many in his native nation. He argued that hosting the World Cup would immerse Brazil in corruption and money laundering, and would later claim that Russia ‘stole’ the 2018 World Cup hosting rights after bribing FIFA officials, before labelling former FIFA president Sepp Blatter as a ‘corrupt thief’.
Although he failed in a bid to be named Governor of Rio de Janeiro, Romário remains active in politics and was a key supporter of Jair Bolsonaro, who served as the Brazilian president from 2019 to 2023.
The Golden Boy
Few can lay claim to a CV that contains winning the Ballon d’Or and being elected as a Member of European Parliament (MEP). But Gianni Rivera, who was dubbed the ‘Golden Boy’ of Italian football in the 1960s courtesy of his fancy footed play, has both on what must be a seriously-impressive LinkedIn page.
Rivera spent almost the entirety of his football career with AC Milan, making more than 500 appearances and winning three Serie A titles and two European Cups. He was a regular in the Italian national team too, winning the European Championship in 1968 and losing in the final of the World Cup in 1970. After retiring from football in 1979, Rivera became the vice president of AC Milan, before deciding that a career in politics was for him.
He was elected to the Italian Parliament in 1987 and re-elected in 1992, 1994 and 1996, before serving as Italy’s secretary of defence – quite the turnaround for somebody known more for his attacking flair during his playing days. Rivera would see out his political career as an MEP, attending more than 240 meetings between 2005 and 2009. At the age of 81, the Golden Boy is now the platinum grandfather enjoying his retirement.
