From a model, showgirl and social media influencer to a broadcast presenter, football agent and even ‘one of the most revolutionary women of the past 100 years’, Wanda Nara has been cast in many guises.
What is not in doubt is that Nara, a 37-year-old from Argentina who has twice been married to high-profile Serie A stars, is the undisputed queen of footballers’ wives and girlfriends.
The likes of Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy might cross swords on social media or fight it out in the high courts, but when it comes to dominating headlines and making waves, Nara is in a league of her own.
Nara is currently involved in a bitter divorce battle with Galatasaray striker Mauro Icardi – the latest twist in an on-again, off-again relationship that has been mired in controversy from the outset.
The couple married in 2014, barely six months after Nara left her previous footballer husband, the former Barcelona and AC Milan striker Maxi López, amid mutual accusations of infidelity.
And history now appears to be repeating itself, with rumours of a budding romance with the Argentinian rapper L-Gante – and a £32 million divorce from Icardi, whom she has accused of gender violence and theft.
Icardi, whose previous clubs include Sampdoria, Inter Milan and Paris St-Germain, is currently convalescing in Buenos Aires after suffering a season-ending knee injury.
He has denied Nara’s allegations, telling the Argentinian gossip show Socios del Espectáculo that his wife ‘twists everything for her own agenda’.
The controversy effectively brings the wheel full circle for the couple, whose relationship began after Nara accused López, her previous husband, of cheating on her with their housekeeper.
Despite her carefully cultivated social media image, Nara has proven herself to be an accomplished and capable figure across a variety of disciplines
Wanda Nara is embroiled in a bitter divorce battle with former Inter Milan and PSG footballer Mauro Icardi – the latest twist in a relationship that has long been mired in controversy
Wanda with then husband Maxi Lopez and future husband Mauro Icardi on holiday together when the pair were teammates
López felt betrayed – not only by Nara but also by Icardi, a former Sampdoria team-mate, nine years his junior, whom he had taken under his wing.
The episode infamously culminated in the ‘Wanda derby’ between Inter Milan and Sampdoria, in which López refused to shake hands with Icardi.
Icardi went on to have the names of López’s three sons – all of whom López and Nara had together – tattooed on his arm, possibly in response to complaints from López about his former team-mate posting pictures of the children online.
Now Nara, who went on to have two daughters with Icardi, is seeking compensation from the 31-year-old relating to her role as his former agent.
Dubbed the world’s most controversial WAG and the backbone of gossip columns from Argentina to Italy and beyond, Nara has long been a lightning rod for criticism.
Behind all the sniping and the easy caricatures, however, lies a more complex reality.
As Icardi’s agent, a role she took up in 2016 after the striker ended his business partnership with Spanish agent Abian Morana, Nara single-handedly took on the Italian football establishment.
‘In Italy, I am considered one of the most powerful agents, like Mino Raiola,’ she declared after just a year in the job. ‘How much will I earn? As much as a normal agent. But Mauro and I are married, so what is his is also mine.’
In a society unaccustomed to footballers’ wives wearing the trousers, Nara’s hardline stance got plenty of backs up. Yet her impact was undeniable.
Wanda often shares scantily-clad pictures to her Instagram account where she has 16.7M followers
The couple have been married since 2014, but Nara has recently been connected with the Argentinian rapper L-Gante – and a £32 million divorce from Icardi
Nara and Icardi have two daughters, Francesca Icardi Nara, born in 2015, and Isabella Icardi Nara, born in 2016
Pictured: Lopez refused to shake hands with Icardi during the infamous ‘Wanda derby’ between Inter Milan and Sampdoria in 2014
Icardi’s salary rose markedly on his wife’s watch, with a lucrative contract extension, signed in October 2016, taking his annual income to an estimated £3.7 million a year.
Performance-related bonuses promised further riches, while the balance sheet of World Marketing Football, a company Nara established to manage Icardi’s image rights and sponsorship deals, became ever more robust.
Yet Nara did not neglect her own interests. She launched a fashion line, Wan Collection, aimed at busy mothers.
Her Instagram following grew, outstripping her husband’s (Nara currently has 16.7 million followers to Icardi’s 12.8 million).
And she became a co-presenter and pundit on Tiki Taka, an Italian football show.
The last of those roles proved problematic, however. Comments made by Nara on TV created uncertainty about Icardi’s future at the San Siro, while her criticism of his team-mates caused division within the dressing room.
The situation came to a head in February 2019, when Icardi was stripped of the Inter captaincy and relegated to the bench after Nara urged the club ‘to sign someone capable of giving him five good balls in every game’.
Italian football was not slow to unleash its claws.
Nara has vigorously defended herself from criticism of her role as Icardi’s agent, saying: ”This is a very macho world, and what I’m doing is revolutionary’
In some quarters, Nara’s ability to raise hackles among the Italian football fraternity only made her more admired
Nara has been praised by the Italian writer Selvaggia Lucarelli as one of the most revolutionary women of the past 100 years
‘If my wife spoke about my team-mates like that in public, I would kick her out of the house,’ snapped Alessandro Costacurta, the former AC Milan defender, in a comment for which he would later apologise.
‘Wanda Nara speaks every week on TV about the situation of Mauro,’ said Sky Italia’s Matteo Barzaghi.
‘And often she speaks about Inter, about Mauro’s team-mates, and she talks about some aspects that players only know in their dressing room.
‘So many players are angry with Mauro, because he doesn’t stop his wife from talking.’
Nor did Morana, Icardi’s former agent, waste the opportunity to take a swipe at his successor.
‘Mauro has lost control of his career,’ said Morana. ‘Wanda isn’t a representative.
‘Mauro will do a lot better when he goes back to prominence for what he does on the pitch rather than the insistent cries for attention of his agent.’
But Nara was not about to be silenced.
‘This is a very macho world, and what I’m doing is revolutionary,’ she told the Italian magazine Gente.
‘Although there are many relatives who represent players, the role of women in football is more linked to ‘staying at home with the kids and keeping quiet.’
‘That’s why I’m a revolutionary. I have friends who are wives of players, and many laugh at me.
‘They see that what I’m doing as strange, but they’ve asked me to represent their husbands because they know me, they know how I act and defend my interests.’
As the controversy played out, things became increasingly ugly. Nara was heckled in stadiums. Her car was reportedly hit by a rock while she was driving. She shed tears on TV.
Giacomo Gallardini, a freelance journalist specialising in Italian football, believes that while Nara may have been guilty of making ‘arrogant and calculated statements’ to secure a better deal for her husband, she was unfairly singled out for being ‘the most prominent female figure in a predominantly male world’.
‘She was blamed and accused of being greedy and evil just because of her gender, because many other agents were keen on doing far worse in order to secure more money for their clients,’ said Gallardini.
‘I don’t believe she was treated fairly.
The fact that she has a lavish lifestyle, that her work brought her to TV and social media fame, also didn’t help, because many people accused her of being a family breaker without investigating much who was to blame.
‘If the same had happened to a male – an agent, or a footballer – the scandal would have been judged in a very different way.
Crucially, the beleaguered Nara did not back down. Within months of her ordeal, Icardi was on his way to Paris St-Germain on a season-long loan deal that proved the precursor to a £54 million permanent move the following summer.
Dubbed the world’s most controversial WAG and the backbone of gossip columns from Argentina to Italy and beyond, Nara has long been a lightning rod for criticism
Nara and Icardi celebrated their 10-year anniversary in May, but Nara has now reportedly filed for divorce
Nara was previously married to the former Barcelona and AC Milan striker Maxi López, only for the relationship to break down in acrimony amid mutual accusations of infidelity
Predictably, blame for the front man’s departure fell squarely on the shoulders of Nara – an accusation she firmly rebutted.
‘I was putting on paper his desires,’ Nara later reflected. ‘Of course, it’s easier to blame a girl, especially in a sexist world like football. A few years ago, I had to send a man to replace me to sign a contract because a club president refused to deal with a woman.’
In many quarters, however, Nara’s ability to raise hackles among the Italian football fraternity only won her more admirers.
‘There is something extremely enjoyable in watching the panic spreading in the male-dominated football galaxy because of Wanda Nara,’ wrote Selvaggia Lucarelli, an Italian journalist and blogger.
Asserting that Nara had ‘footballers, managers, fans, journalists and her husband by the balls’, Lucarelli added: ‘She doesn’t care about gaining credibility and respect with brown dyes and corporate suits.
In a world where a woman, at most, can have her say on [Cristiano] Ronaldo in his underwear on Yamamay posters, Nara is one of the most revolutionary women of the past 100 years.’
While Gallardini would not go that far – ‘She is not a feminist icon,’ he said – he nonetheless believes Nara suffered discrimination.
‘In my opinion there was a bit of double standard – she was portrayed as a puppet master of Icardi’s career, mostly because of her not adhering to the quiet-mother-of-the-children role that WAGs usually have.’
That view is echoed by Alvise Agnazzo, a Serie A expert and freelance writer, who pointed to a culture of chauvinism in the Italian workplace.
‘Nara is considered an extraordinary woman in the management of image and communication within all Italian media,’ said Agnazzo.
‘The criticisms she has suffered in Italy arise exclusively from a deeply rooted male chauvinist culture, jealousy and the usual difficulties that women encounter in the “Belpaese” within the world of work.
‘Beautiful, elegant and with a smile that often confused her interlocutors, Wanda Nara was an earthquake of feminism in a football that only today, after many years, is starting to accept the role of women.’
As Nara and Icardi prepare to go their separate ways, it should not go unnoted that we have been here before.
Two years ago, Nara declared the couple were divorcing before changing her mind – one of numerous occasions on which the relationship has looked to be holed below the waterline only to recover.
Could history repeat itself? It seems unlikely. Yet, with Nara, you just never know.
