Why Olivier Giroud wants to spend it like Beckham

Not content with fronting the Arsenal attack, Premier League star Olivier Giroud wants to be a global brand. Richard Godwin meets the Frenchman vying to be the next David Beckham.
Big goals: Olivier Giroud
Richard Godwin20 November 2014

Ever since Eric Cantona landed a flying kick on the chest of a mouthy Crystal Palace fan in 1995, the bar has been raised for French players in English football. It’s not enough to be cultured with the ball. Any Gaël or Yohan can do that. To be counted among the elite, you have to do something that transcends the game.David Ginola managed it with his L’Oréal locks and louche charm. Thierry Henry managed it with his insouciance and va-va-voom. Now Olivier Giroud is vying to do it, too. #SuccessBeyondTheGame, as he keeps tweeting to his 1.1m Twitter followers.

The 28-year-old Arsenal forward has put in some muscular shifts since he arrived from Montpellier in 2012 as a replacement for Robin van Persie at the fulcrum of Arsène Wenger’s attack. A total of 41 goals in 102 appearances, plus an FA Cup winners’ medal from last season, is a respectable return at the Emirates. However, it is his haircut that has arguably been his most influential contribution — a Gallic twist on the rockabilly short-back-and-sides that has set razors buzzing all over the Premier League. When I tell him that my Arsenal-mad brother-in-law recently turned up with what can only be described as a ‘Giroud’ on his head, he looks pleased. ‘Ha ha ha, brilliant! I am strongly identified with this, particularly in France,’ he explains, patting his own Giroud proudly. ‘Sometimes I see it on the younger kids. They try to do a big quiff with very short sides. It’s always great to be an example to the young players.’

In many ways, Giroud — polite, presentable, personable — is the archetypal modern footballer. He has the £80,000-a-week contract and the burgeoning international career (he was part of the promising France team that made the World Cup quarter-finals this summer). He has the directional haircut and the sleeve tattoos. He has what he once described to L’Équipe sports newspaper as ‘a pretty decent face’ and he has the social media presence to make it count, with Instagram posts of his family on a private jet with Robert Pires, and behind-the-scenes tweets from his campaigns for Hugo Boss fragrance. Like David Beckham, whom he admires, he has also made the front pages after a classic tabloid sting: in February, a model named Celia Kay took pictures of him in his pants in his hotel room prior to a match. (The Sun on Sunday published the story just after a 5-1 defeat to Liverpool, to maximise discomfort.) He denied that they slept together, but we’ll come to that later. In the meantime, Giroud is simply pleased to be in one piece.

We meet on a cold, rainy day at The Den, Millwall’s stadium in Bermondsey, where Giroud is shooting for Sony’s ‘microtising’ campaign, sport’s smallest ever advertising campaign, which will see the Sony and 4K logos branded on to the studs of his boots, visible only to fans watching on Sony’s range of 4K Ultra HD televisions. With all due respect to Millwall fans (who are really lovely guys, best fans in London), the venue does not drip with Premier League glamour. There is a faint smell of mashed potato. The décor is a bit ‘doomed cross-Channel ferry circa 1978’. It’s raining, too. However, Giroud seems not to mind. Earlier, he had the chance to run out on a real football pitch — and it’s been a blessed relief.

After the career high of scoring in the World Cup — ‘When I was on holiday in France, a lot of people came and said thanks to me’ — he injured himself playing for Arsenal against Everton a few games into the new season. It was confirmed in late August that his left tibia was broken. He gingerly rolls up a tracksuit leg to reveal a pale ankle with a couple of small scars. ‘Et voilà.’ Now, after almost three months of intensive physiotherapy, including a week at the specialist CERS injury clinic in Saint Raphaël, his return is imminent. ‘I have two screws in it but I have no pain. So hopefully I’ll be back ahead of schedule. I feel very sharp and fit.’

Arsenal fans have wearied of their team’s mediocrity at times this season, so you can only imagine what it’s been like for Giroud, watching his team-mates falter against Burnley and Swansea City. ‘Everyone asks if it is boring being injured. The answer is yes, it is very boring but it’s mostly frustrating. It’s pissing me off!’ he says, before having second thoughts about his English. ‘Is it a bit informal to say “pissing me off”?’

On the ball: Giroud wears Ray-Ban sunglasses, £99.90

Still, he dispels the idea that being injured means playing Xbox all day. ‘Actually, when you’re injured you have to work harder — maybe twice what is normal.’ But it gives him more time at home in Hampstead: an admirable choice of postcode, I’d say, given how many North London footballers head to McMansions in Hertfordshire. He lives with his French wife Jennifer and 18-month-old daughter Jade, who made a cameo at Wembley after the FA Cup Final last summer in a number 12 shirt marked ‘DADDY’.

Giroud was born in Chambéry in southeast France (‘Good wine, good cheese, a lot of skiing’), one of four children in what he describes as a ‘middle-class’ household. ‘I miss France, but when you arrive in London, you have everything,’ he says. ‘Apart from the weather, maybe. It’s such a cosmopolitan city, which is really nice when you’re from a small town. There are so many parks to walk in, so many restaurants to enjoy, and the shopping is great at Christmastime.’

As a true Frenchman, he especially likes eating out. ‘I’m really chauvin [biased] when it comes to food,’ he says. ‘It is French gastronomie for me… I mean, come on! L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon [in Covent Garden], that is the best.’ Does he cook himself? ‘It’s a big world, cooking, but I can do good simple things, like a crudity salad.’ I assume he means salade de crudités, but I rather like the idea of crudity salad — it sounds like something they’d have served on the Highbury terraces of old.

The French connection at Arsenal remains strong, 18 years into Wenger’s reign. Giroud is bezzies with Mathieu Debuchy, the right-back who arrived from Newcastle United this summer (‘We have a good understanding off the pitch’), as well as Laurent Koscielny and Mathieu Flamini. ‘We sometimes go out partying, but most of the time we are having dinner with our families at home. When we go out… I don’t want to say, because I don’t want to advertise… but we go to French places. Ha ha.’

Giroud rates David Beckham as his style icon — and certainly, the leaked pictures suggest that underwear modelling might suit Giroud in future, too. ‘But I am not copying him,’ he maintains. He points out that the opportunities for footballers to express themselves are actually fairly limited. You may have noticed that at the World Cup everyone wore multicoloured boots. ‘It’s all about sponsoring,’ he reminds me. ‘It’s brands — Puma, Nike, Adidas; they want everything to be in flashy colours to draw the eyes to the boots. It’s not voluntary for us. But the hairstyle, it’s yours. You want the best hairstyle, don’t you?’

The same goes for tattoos, of course — which somewhat explains the phenomenal quantities of ink on display in the Premier League. On his right arm, Giroud has a cross and a phrase from Psalm 23 (‘The Lord is My Shepherd’) in Latin. His Catholicism means a lot to him. On his left arm, he has a few Polynesian symbols, each signifying values that are close to his heart. ‘Love, friendship, courage, strongness...’ He tries to recall the last. ‘Yes, family... It means a lot to me.’

Getting his kicks: Fendi fur jacket, £2,510. All other clothes, Olivier's own

Which brings us to the alleged incident last February. Giroud admitted Kay had been in his hotel room, but both denied they had slept together. When Giroud tweeted his apologies to his family, friends and employers, he added: ‘Yes, I made a mistake but I have not committed adultery!’

Was he surprised by the ferocity of the English tabloids? ‘I was told about these tabloids when I came to England, but I didn’t understand so much about it until a few months ago,’ he says. ‘Everyone makes mistakes and has to improve themselves. The English tabloids, they are really tough — they scrutinise everything. Now I am really cautious. You have to take care of every single thing you’re doing, on the pitch and off the pitch. You have to be an example for the young players.’

I don’t doubt his devotion to his family —the word ‘adultery’ is clearly loaded for him as a Catholic. He tells me he has recently read a fatherhood manual called Papa, J’ai Besoin de Toi (Daddy, I Need You) and gives every impression of being a hands-on father. ‘I am more responsible now. Everything I do is for my daughter — I think it’s the same for every dad. You don’t have the same life as before, of course, but it’s a new life.’

Does he change nappies? ‘Of course!’ he says. ‘I change nappies, I feed her bottles, I give her a bath — everything. You know, the new generation of fathers is adapting to do all of this themselves. Our fathers and grandfathers, they did not do any of this. It might sound hard, but it’s an incredible chance to improve the human part of you. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me.’

I would really like to ask him how the tabloid exposure changed him, but no. ‘I do not want to speak about it,’ he says. Instead, I ask how he responds to fans who say footballers are paid way too much. ‘I think they are not proper fans, the ones who are thinking that. Most of the time they are jealous of the money you earn. OK, in terms of society, we do get too much money — but it’s sport. Compared to golf or Formula 1 or NBA players, we don’t get so much.’

Does he think his own pay is fair, then? ‘Yes, I think in terms of the money football generates... but I’m not the best paid. Some players get ridiculous money. But you don’t see the sacrifices they have made in their younger lives. It’s not easy. Your work is scrutinised very closely, you have to do it again and again, it’s always... remise en question. Tu comprends?’ Called back into question.

Giroud in the Sony advertisement

He describes himself as a ‘reflective’ character, which he ascribes partly to his temperament, partly to his faith, and partly to the fact that it took him a relatively long time to make it to the top. He studied for three years after completing his baccalauréat, which he says has made him a more rounded character. He was still playing for Tours in the French second division at 24 and only really made his name with an unfancied Montpellier side that surprised everyone by winning the French title in 2012. ‘When you come from low down, you appreciate what you have a lot more, because you know where you’ve come from. I always appreciate the chance I have had,’ he says.

But, of course, for any of it to count, it has to work out on the pitch. ‘If you think about how people will judge you, what the media is saying, what your family will think about you — bof! You cannot. You have to think about the game.’

Olivier Giroud features in the new 4K Microtising campaign from Sony, which demonstrates the extreme detail of 4K television technology by showing that every minute detail on the pitch can be seen

Portraits by Hamish Brown. Styled by Orsolya Szabo

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in