WAGs

The tabloid coverage was relentless.

Front page reports and multi-page spreads of 1,000 pound shopping sprees, boozy dinners, wild nights out, and even the WAGs just sitting together and cheering their partners on during matches.

It was such a cultural phenomenon, so much so that its legacy still continues to live on to this day.

Like clockwork, every two years, either during the Euros or the World Cup, my feed will be inundated with pictures of 2000s WAGs.

And a question I see raised a lot in response to these pictures in the comments is, where have all the WAGs gone? A lot of people are wondering, why is there such little press coverage of WAGs today? Why are WAGs so much lesser known now, especially in comparison to 20 years ago? And that's what I want to answer in today's video, but I want to go really deep.

Not only do I want to explore why WAGs coverage and celebrity is so drastically different today, but why WAGs were such a phenomenon in 2006 in the first place, and actually explore WAGs beyond the pictures, the press coverage, and most importantly, the label and negative stereotypes.

What was, and is, being a WAG actually like? And to try and answer these questions, we had to go beyond just researching the wives and girlfriends of footballers.

We did a lot of research into the evolution of football and football culture, how ideals of masculinity have changed.