Remembering Michael Jackson's peculiar relationship with football

“Good luck to all of the World Cup finalists this weekend!” read one post on Twitter. On the face of it, there was nothing particularly unusual about the tweet, given it was sent two days before the final and social media was full of similar messages. What was unusual was that this particular message came from the official account of the late Michael Jackson, together with a picture of the King of Pop in a Nice shirt from the 1979-80 season.

While not one of the most famous pictures of Jackson’s storied life, it’s well known among his loyal fanbase. It comes from a photoshoot with Jackson’s personal photographer, Todd Gray, in 1983. Jackson had four or five wardrobe changes during the day but, much to the photographer’s chagrin, he refused to remove the shirt once he had put it on.

Had Jackson seen nimble Yugoslavian striker Nenad Bjeković rattle in 15 goals in the 1979-80 season and fallen in love with the Nice team? It’s unlikely. Yet no one really knows how Jackson got his hands on the shirt, with Gray insisting it didn’t come from him. Some fans speculate that he bought the jersey on a trip to the Cote d’Azur while promoting Thriller.

Taken in the garden of Hayvenhurst, the Jackson family compound in California, the pictures convey a carefree Jackson; pre-onset of Vitiligo, pre-Pepsi burn incident, post-Motown 25 and just prior to his rise to stratospheric levels of fame. This was Jackson before he became a one-man moneymaking machine, before the weight of his own success became a millstone, before that pressure of having to be Michael Jackson consumed him. Gray’s photos show a man at ease.

After Jackson’s death in June 2009, Nice posted the pictures on their official website as a tribute while simultaneously refuting claims that they were fake. The scepticism was understandable; why would Jackson have ever sported a Nice top? Jackson isn’t usually associated with football, yet he crossed paths with the game on several occasions. The pop star knew little about football, but he did claim to be able to “play a bit”.

No footage exists of Jackson moonwalking past opposition defenders, though, and much can be gleaned from a short scene in his nonsensical 1988 music-video -compilation-cum-fantasy-film, Moonwalker, in which he throws and runs with a football in NFL-style fashion. Jackson’s notoriously strict father afforded his children no time to dabble in such frivolous activities as hobbies, not when there was music to practice and dance steps to learn. Sport was something Jackson only saw other children playing in his formative years.

Despite lacking sporting prowess, Jackson loved performing in stadiums and he had a particular fondness for European arenas. Bigger was always better, adding to his larger-than-life mystique. On the second leg of the Bad tour in in the summer and autumn of 1988, Jackson gyrated and glided across the stage in some of football’s grandest cathedrals: the Camp Nou, the Vicente Calderón, the Olympiastadion in Munich and the Parc des Princes provided the backdrop for Jackson at his peak.

The apex of the tour came in the form of seven shows at the old Wembley, with Jackson performing in front of 504,000 people – a record that’s never been broken. Such was the extraordinary level of demand – 1.5 million people applied for tickets – that 20 shows could have been staged. His total of 15 dates at Wembley remains more than any other artist.

Four years later, for the Dangerous world tour, Jackson added El Monumental and the Azteca Stadium to the list of temples he had conquered. At the Azteca show – which drew 500,000 people across five sold-out nights in October and November 1993 – Jackson bedazzled the audience with mesmerising footwork, bringing back memories of Diego Maradona playing against England, Belgium and West Germany in the same ground seven years earlier.

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Jackson’s dalliances with football took a surreal turn towards the end of the century. It’s now common to see A-list celebrities in the plush seats at Champions League or World Cup finals, Jackson’s one and only appearance at a football match was the antithesis of glamour. For a performer who would go on to sell out the 20,000-seater 02 Arena in London 50 times over in the space of five hours as a 50-year-old, Craven Cottage and the third tier of English football seemed rather ill-fitting. Yet there he was, invited by Fulham owner Mohammed Al Fayed to take in the visit of Wigan Athletic in April 1999. Jackson even performed a lap of honour, waving to 12,000 rather bemused spectators.

“It was so exciting and passionate, the fans were like the people who come to my concerts,” he exclaimed after witnessing Kevin Keegan’s side’s 2-0 win. “They were screaming and shouting and cheering their players on. I wanted to jump up and start dancing because I’m used to performing on stage when I hear all that noise.”

Jackson was later brought into the Fulham dressing room by Al Fayed. Some of the players thought he was an impersonator and others imitated him with poorly executed moonwalks. “They seemed a really good team with a great spirit,” Jackson said, which was presumably music to the manager’s ears. “He seemed more interested in an old photograph taken in the 1920s, where the supporters were all wearing the same hats as he had,” said Keegan. Fulham achieved promotion a game later, beating Gillingham 2-0 to earn a spot in the second tier.

That wasn’t the end of Jackson’s association with Fulham, though. In April 2011, Al Fayed unveiled a statue of the King of Pop at Craven Cottage. Not every supporter approved but the owner insisted the statue stayed. “If some stupid fans don’t understand and appreciate such a gift they can go to hell,” said a defiant Al Fayed.

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It was removed two and a half years later after much ridicule, but Al Fayed blamed Fulham’s subsequent relegation on the absence of Jackson outside the ground. “This statue was a charm and we removed the luck from the club and now we have to pay the price,” said Al Fayed. The statue has since found a home at the National Football Museum in Manchester.

Jackson’s trip to Fulham v Wigan may have been bizarre, but his most surreal football crossover took place at Exeter City in June 2002. Everyone’s favourite spoon-bender, Uri Geller, had become the club’s co-chairman but, in light of financial struggles, Geller decided to stage an event to raise funds for the Grecians.

Geller called upon his friend Jackson to appear – and appear he did, under the condition that half the money raised would go to charities fighting Aids in Africa. Some of his more hardcore fans paid £100 for the privilege of riding into the city on the same train as their idol. Jackson, flanked by Geller and David Blaine, addressed the crowd of 7,000 for 10 minutes before Blaine did a few tricks.

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Jackson was asked if England would beat Denmark in the last-16 at the ongoing World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Ever the showman, he declared they would progress, which elicited a huge cheer from the audience. His forecast was somewhat tempered by his subsequent admission that he knew nothing about football. England did beat Denmark, though, meaning Jackson could also claim to be a decent pundit.