“The best year of my life in football now doesn’t feel like something I can celebrate,” said Manchester City’s Jack Grealish after burglars raided his Cheshire house while his family was home.
The invasion of the England football player’s home was one in a recent string of burglaries targeting the homes of high-profile sports stars when they are on the field or overseas.
To criminals, the home of a footballer is no doubt an attractive proposition; likely to contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of high-value goods, including electronics, jewellery, designer clothing and luxury watches.
Burglars are able to work out their best opportunities to strike from the social media accounts of sports stars, who often post about their time away training or on family holidays, or even simply from the fixtures timetable.
Footballers are not the only targets – the County Durham home of the England cricket captain, Ben Stokes, was burgled last month while he was in Pakistan for the Test series, but his wife and children were home. A man has been arrested and bailed in connection with the incident.
Last year there were at least five burglaries on the homes of footballers alone, including the Newcastle United midfielder Joelinton’s Northumberland house, and the Essex home of West Ham’s Kurt Zouma, who is on loan in Saudi Arabia.
Thieves targeted Grealish’s Cheshire home while he was playing on Boxing Day. His family were there at the time, and burglars escaped with £1m worth of possessions.
“This has been a traumatic experience for all of us, I am just so grateful that nobody was hurt,” Grealish wrote in a post on Instagram.
“I have had so many amazing experiences and achievements over the last 12 months, but to be honest, the best year of my life in football now doesn’t feel like something I can celebrate.
“The people that commit these terrible crimes have no idea of the damage they cause to people’s lives.”
According to the Telegraph, before the 2022 World Cup, police and security experts gave players advice on home security. They have reportedly collectively spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on everything from infrared cameras, to security guards and protection dogs to protect themselves and their families.
Raheem Sterling flew back from Qatar after burglars targeted his Surrey home while the winger was away for the tournament. At the time he was said to have been left “shaken” and “concerned for the welfare of his children”.
Emiliano Krosi, from Southend-on-Sea, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle in June, and is due to be sentenced next week.
Police found evidence on Krosi’s phone of him discussing selling stolen items, and pinning various properties on maps said to be potential targets. Prosecutors said he was in a “management role,” rather than carrying out the burglaries.
Many of the raids involve organised gangs with sophisticated methods. They will identify potential victims, find their addresses online and scope out properties in advance.
Shaun Rimmer, 29, Adam Hastings, 31, and Callum Martin, 33, who targeted the home of the former Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti, were involved in 37 burglaries across Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and north Wales.
In December 2022 they were jailed for seven-and-a-half years, 10 years and nine months, and four years and nine months respectively.
Phone data showed they had carried out reconnaissance in the days before the raid, striking while Ancelotti’s partner and teenage daughter were at home.
“The team had access to a number of high-powered stolen vehicles and most significantly, a very large supply of cloned number plates, which were deployed to disguise the vehicles they were using from the attentions of the police,” the prosecutor Michael Scholes told the court.
In some cases, gangs from overseas are believed to be coming to the UK specifically to carry out high-value raids.
Four Croatian nationals, aged 23, 27, 31, and 42, who had recently travelled to the UK from Italy, were arrested in April in connection with a series of burglaries, including one at the home of the Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak.
Policing and security experts said high-value burglaries were increasing, as was the level of violence or threatened violence by raiders.
Vasilis Sotiropoulos, an ex-special forces lieutenant and owner of Spartan Elite Security, said that in recent years he had seen “huge demand” for the company’s services, “especially with professional footballers”.
“Criminals are watching on social media,” he said. “They know when they travel away for photo shoots, for away fixtures, for commitments with a sporting club. So criminals are very well aware of the schedule of the sporting talent.”
Gangs pick their target then carry out “hostile surveillance”, Sotiropoulos said, assessing the security before deciding to break in, and studying the area surrounding the property on online maps.
“People, neighbours, friends, family, even their PR agencies, they post photos of their houses on social media,” he added. “So all the information is out there.”
Dai Davies, a former Ch Supt at the Metropolitan police, said forces were not always adept at sharing intelligence to stay ahead of the gangs that operate across force boundaries.
He said having “advised at the highest level”, he would recommend “alarms, CCTV, safe rooms and all the rest of it”.
“It’s a sad indictment that we now live in a country where people have to have safe rooms,” he said. “But some of these attacks are taking place while the wives or the partners and their children are actually in the premises.
“Some of these individuals, film stars, football stars etc, need to look very carefully at their own publicity and particularly those who give access to magazines, which show interiors, who then go on to boast about their watches, cars, you name it.”
“If I was advising anyone,” he said, “the lower the profile that you can keep while obviously doing what you professionally do, the better.”
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