At the 2006 World Cup, the England team’s wives and girlfriends could drink, shop and pose all they liked. Eighteen years on, fun seems to be in short supply
It raises all kinds of sad questions to hear that the England footballers’ wives and girlfriends are heading to Euro 24 with £100,000 worth of private security. The whole point of the Wags was that they occupied a timeless place, untouched by current affairs or the pace of change. They never had to justify themselves with good works or decorum. Not even the gristliest, dungaree-clad feminist (me, let’s say) minded their self-fashioning as pure adornments for their celebrated menfolk. They could have careers of their own, or not have careers; drink WKD or drink kale juice; they could have been poets or they could have been fools. In the modern business of perpetual censure, they were (as the management consultants would put it) outside scope.
And perhaps they still are, and the German government is overreacting in its perception of a terrorist threat from Islamic State Khorasan Province, the IS offshoot thought to be behind the Moscow attack last month. But the caution is probably warranted. Nothing is sacred to a terrorist, and the random sanctity of a Wag – the vanishingly rare social agreement to just enjoy the sight of them living their best lives – must be like a red rag to a bull, when you’re a misogynist death cult.
