‘World’s Most Beautiful Soccer Player’ puts a successful beach day in the books after taking talents back home
Croatian footballer Ana Maria Marković, nicknamed the "World's Most Beautiful Soccer Player" by some media, has returned home to Croatia after leaving American side Brooklyn FC, where she spent a single season. She has now joined Hajduk Split, marking her fifth club move since 2024, and shared images of herself enjoying a beach day back on home soil.
Marković has attracted attention as much for her media profile and public appearances, including a spot at Web Summit in Lisbon in 2023, as for her playing career, which has taken in several clubs in a short space of time. The article, published by Fox Sports' OutKick, offers little further detail on her playing statistics or the reasons behind her frequent transfers, focusing instead on her lifestyle and social media presence.
- Ana Maria Marković leaves Brooklyn FC, returns to Croatia
- Joins Hajduk Split, her fifth club since 2024
- Shared beach photos after moving back home
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Marković has actively cultivated a public profile through media appearances, event attendance, and social media engagement, exercising genuine agency over her self-presentation. Media outlets covering her lifestyle and personal achievements simply reflect legitimate public interest in her as a public figure; treating athletes as multidimensional people with lives and interests beyond statistics is perfectly appropriate, and there is no requirement that sports coverage must focus exclusively on performance metrics.
The case against
Regardless of Marković's deliberate public engagement, the pronounced tendency of sports media to emphasise a female athlete's appearance and lifestyle rather than her performance and career achievements represents a gendered double standard that would rarely apply to male players of equivalent status. This pattern of coverage, reflected across multiple outlets, subtly communicates that female athletes' primary value is their appearance rather than their skill, thereby undermining their credibility as serious professional athletes and perpetuating harmful stereotypes about women in sport.