Revealed: What you’d find on footballers’ hacked phones

It’s still very early days in 2020 but we’ve already seen what may end up being the most bizarre news event of the year.

In what sounds like an abandoned plotline from the new series of Homeland, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – a man who looks unnervingly like a cross between FIFA executive Gianni Infantino and Captain Picard – has had his phone hacked. The hacker gained access to sensitive personal information, texts, emails, and we assume left an embarrassing status on Bezos’ Facebook page.

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos speaks after receiving the 2019 International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Excellence in Industry Award during the the 70th International Astronautical Congress at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC on October 22, 2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

But the real story lies in who supposedly carried out this crime. It wasn’t a bitter ex-employee, nor a disgruntled spotty nerd whose Prime order had been delayed. It was in fact allegedly executed by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who sent Bezos a virus-laden video on WhatsApp.

We’re not really ones to get bogged down in the finer details of geopolitical diplomatic crises such as these (much to the relief of our lawyers), so we’ll leave the Amazon hackgate there. But it did get us thinking: just what would we likely find on football folks’ smartphones if we sent them similarly dodgy videos?

Shkodran Mustafi

Naturally, the (somehow) World Cup-winning defender will be the owner of a vastly overpriced phone that doesn’t do a fraction of what it was meant to do when purchased a few years ago. And it’d be easy to dupe him into playing the planted video so long as the preview thumbnail says “most pointless slide tackles ever!”.

Once in, his phone would be fascinating to navigate through. There’d inevitably be a camera roll chock full of Sunday League defending videos – something the German clearly uses for inspiration on the pitch – but the saddest element would be a peek into his WhatsApp.

You’d see streams of messages apologising to David Luiz for the mistake that led to the Brazilian’s sending off at Stamford Bridge in the week. One message includes a meme of Sideshow Bob hugging Krusty the Clown, whom Mustafi has crudely Photoshopped his face on to.

All messages are blue ticked but yet to receive a reply.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Ole can barely go two minutes without thinking or speaking about his former manager Sir Alex Ferguson, as evidenced by the several dozen photo albums dedicated to him that we’d discover on his blower. Album titles include “Me and Sir Alex”, “Fergie in the dugout”, and “The Boss’ training ground car parking space”.

But by far the most unsettling aspect would be the creepy deepfake start-up video that features Ferguson CGI’d on to a topless fella, thanking Solskjaer for turning him on…

Steve Bruce

We like a takeaway as much as the next man… unless that man is Steve Bruce. And the home screen of his grease-stained iPhone is a testament to that fact.

Once tapped in you’d bear witness to every takeaway app under the sun: Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s… they’re all there. As is the Wetherspoon app, because who can really be arsed with the strenuous effort of walking to the bar when they can bring food and drink directly to your table?

Unfortunately, we would struggle to find any tantalising transfer tidbits or controversial communications from Mike Ashley in his emails, as they would be buried deep amongst countless takeaway order receipts.

Gareth Bale

Real Madrid’s wantaway winger would probably relish his phone being hacked, purely so he can blame manager Zinedine Zidane just for a laugh. Should it ever happen, sitting in front of his “Wales, golf, Madrid – in that order” wallpaper, we’d find an overflowing travel folder filled with flight finder apps and learn Mandarin tutorials.

There’s no point looking in the video reel though, because is there anything more boring than someone filming their golf driver practice sessions?

Jamie Vardy

If you were to peruse through the striker’s mobile, you’d see just about everything you’d expect: selfie videos of him downing Blue WKDs, poorly written and questionable plot ideas for his film biopic, and motivational voice notes aplenty from Brendan Rodgers.

But a simple tap on the Instagram app would cause your jaw to hit the floor than Vardy himself does in the penalty area. It’d log straight into wife Rebekah’s account, with bookmarked posts from Coleen Rooney’s private profile. Coincidentally all the very same supposedly staged posts that were leaked to the press last year.

So after all that Insta drama, it actually turned out to be………. Jamie Vardy. Who’d have thunk it?