Soccer (or football, as it’s commonly know around the world) is without a doubt one of the most popular professional sports today. Anyone who has ever watched a match will quite quickly notice just how many professional football players are tattooed. Perhaps the player whose name is most synonymous with being tattooed is David Beckham. In fact, many people credit Beckham as being one of the main celebrities to have helped raise the stature and popularity of tattoos amongst the masses.
This past summer during the World Cup, I noticed exactly how many players from all over the world had tattoos. I was more than a little curious to find out more about these tattoos or at the very least, to be able to see them up close for longer than the few brief glimpses that I typically was able to grab on my TV screen. Thankfully, the international football organisation FIFA has also taken notice of its tattooed superstars and started up a small page on the FIFA website dedicated to highlighting these tattoos.
Tales From the Tattoo Parlour is a compiled list of tattooed football players that focuses on not only which players have which tattoos, but also provides everything from what the tattoos mean to what inspired them in the first place.
‘Religious scenes are not the most popular designs among players, however, as Patricio Hinojosa, who has worked his magic for several Chilean footballers, explains: “More than anything they ask me for portraits of their children or their wives, or the names of their family members.”’
Then there’s players like Liverpool striker Fernando Torres who is so into tattoos that he’s actually set up a studio in his home for Argentinian tattoo artist Leonardo Miralles. Although there are numerous players with a whole whack of different tattoos, their reasons for having these tattoos doesn’t seem to differ much from the reasons that the average person has for being tattooed. That being said, I definitely enjoy the opportunity to look into the lives of these players and hear their reasons for being tattooed. I only wish FIFA would expand this section on their site and continue to report on a regular basis about the tattoos of the players and the artists whom the players trust.