‘Yes, I was the first WAG and at 61 my sex appeal is as strong as ever!’

The birth of the phenomenon that is the modern day ‘WAG’ — the acronym for wives and girlfriends of our leading sportsmen — may have no official anniversary, but there is one person who is nonetheless confident of its origin.

‘Of course, it started with me,’ declares — who else? — Nancy Dell’Olio.

‘Because I came along in 2001 and yes, I believe the English people had not seen anyone like me before in the football world.’

Certainly, it’s fair to say that before Nancy, vanishingly few people could have confidently named the partner of the England football team manager.

That all changed in January 2001, when Sven Goran-Eriksson was appointed to the role.

When the mild-mannered Swede moved to London from Italy to take up the post he was accompanied by Nancy, his then 40-year-old designer-clad Italian-American partner of three years, and it was not long before the British public were transfixed by their relationship.

The birth of the phenomenon that is the modern day ‘WAG’ — the acronym for wives and girlfriends of our leading sportsmen — may have no official anniversary, but there is one person who is nonetheless confident of its origin

Or perhaps more pertinently transfixed by the raven-haired, undeniably glamorous Nancy, as she navigated first Sven’s affairs — among them with television presenter Ulrika Jonsson and Faria Alam, then secretary of the Football Association — and British public life.

On one memorable occasion she attended a reception at No 10 in 2002, hosted by prime minister Tony Blair, wearing an eye-popping flame-coloured rhinestone-studded catsuit.

‘When I walked in the reception room, everyone was already there,’ she purrs now. ‘Tony Blair was coming down from his private apartment and because we had met before, we walked in together. Can you imagine the reaction? It was an iconic moment and even the number one PR in the world could never have made that happen.’ Nor was it the only ‘moment’ involving the now 61-year-old Nancy.

From the Euro 2004 football tournament in Lisbon through to the 2006 World Cup in the German spa town of Baden Baden, Nancy was the unofficial queen of the WAGs, a term that rapidly became a shorthand for a particular breed of fake-tanned, false-nailed, designer-handbagged celebrity sporting partner.

Nancy aside — and indeed, she considers herself in a slightly separate category — Victoria Beckham, Cheryl Cole, Coleen Rooney and Abbey Clancy (the other halves, respectively, of England captain David and players Ashley, Wayne and Peter Crouch) were the undisputed leaders of the pack.

And never more so than in Baden Baden, where when they weren’t sporting oversized designer sunglasses in the stands they were dancing on tables or strutting down the city’s cobbled streets in tiny denim shorts and tottering heels amid a blaze of paparazzi flashes.

Certainly, it’s fair to say that before Nancy, vanishingly few people could have confidently named the partner of the England football team manager. That all changed in January 2001, when Sven Goran-Eriksson was appointed to the role. Pictured: Victoria Beckham, Coleen Rooney, Louise Owen and Elen Rivas

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Fast forward 16 years, and the scenes playing out in Qatar in recent days could not form more of a contrast: after arriving last week to little fanfare, the current crop of WAGs have kept a studiously low profile. Often sporting football shirts — not to mention clutching the hands of assorted toddlers — the vibe is family-focused and low key.

But then, with Nancy long gone from the football scene, could it be anything else? Although as she reveals today, she never really approved of the antics of her contemporaries and while international football may be less overtly glamorous these days, she thinks it’s all the better for it.

‘There are some interesting faces, but aside from Harry Kane I can’t remember their names,’ she declares in her heavily Italian-accented English. ‘The glamour and the big personalities have gone. We are living in different times, modern times, so it is more in keeping with today and it is better for the football.’

I am chatting to Nancy — her dark hair piled on top of her head, make up immaculate — on Zoom from her family home in Puglia, where she is with her mother after losing her father to Covid two years ago.

The pandemic meant she has spent the majority of the past three years in Italy — she has an apartment in Rome — although she is starting to travel again, particularly to London, where she also keeps a flat.

A former corporate lawyer specialising in high-end property transactions, Nancy works in ‘international public affairs’, as well as being an ambassador for Puglia, where she was raised from the age of five after her family moved back to Italy from New York.

‘I gained the title “The first lady of English football”,’ she informs me. ‘It was given to me by Sir Trevor McDonald at a TV award ceremony. Nobody had it before or after me, so it was a compliment.’

Her ‘court’ at Baden Baden witnessed drunk singing and dancing on tables, there were rows over baggage allowances (Frank Lampard’s ex, Spanish model Elen Rivas allegedly lost her temper trying to take six items of carry-on luggage on board her flight to Germany), sky-high hotel bills (one WAG reputedly had 60 bottles of champagne on her tab), a £57,000 shopping bill said to have been racked up during just one hour of shopping, and even a drug scandal, with Abbey Clancy dispatched home after historic photos emerged of her snorting cocaine.

Rio Ferdinand, then in the England team, later called it a ‘circus’ and the WAG antics were even, rather unfairly, blamed for England’s loss to Portugal in the quarter final.

‘It was this crazy phenomenon,’ says Nancy now. ‘You had these superstar players known around the world and some of the wives and girlfriends were already celebrities, but what happened in Baden Baden was they went over the top. I think they enjoyed being the centre of attention, and it was too much.’

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From the Euro 2004 football tournament in Lisbon through to the 2006 World Cup in the German spa town of Baden Baden, Nancy was the unofficial queen of the WAGs, a term that rapidly became a shorthand for a particular breed of fake-tanned, false-nailed, designer-handbagged celebrity sporting partner

Naturally, Nancy was having none of it. ‘I was keeping quite a distance,’ she says. ‘I was the partner of the manager, not a footballer, so I was more conscious, and this was never my style anyway. So we had only one evening together, we had a nice dinner at a lovely, elegant restaurant in the hotel.’

While she does not specify, it was perhaps during this evening that she recalls trying to sound a warning bell to her peers. ‘I had a conversation with Sven, and I knew he was disturbed by the situation and worried it could disturb the players,’ she says.

‘So I suggested to some that they keep a low profile. Some took it in the right way, some reacted like they couldn’t care less. Some of them I did like, yes, but I did not have deep conversations,’ she says. ‘We didn’t have a lot of things in common.’

Of all of them she was closest to Victoria Beckham, whom she had first got to know in 2002, and whom she describes as a ‘lovely person’.

Nonetheless, they have not stayed in touch. ‘I have met her sometimes in America and they have been a couple of times on holiday in Puglia, but we have a completely different life,’ she says. She has seen Coleen Rooney at Royal Ascot ‘once or twice’.

Mention of Coleen prompts me to ask for Nancy’s thoughts on the recent ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel hearing brought by Rebekah Vardy against Coleen. Her view is that the issue should have been dealt with privately. ‘It’s not my style at all and I disagree in some respects that it all happened,’ she says.

‘For Coleen to post what she did publicly [the accusation that Rebekah Vardy was leaking stories about her], that doesn’t get my approval.’

Some could say that this embracing of discretion is ironic, given that for many years Nancy lived her life in a blaze of publicity.

How much of this was deliberate or otherwise is hard to say, but there is no question that her ten-year relationship with Eriksson mesmerised the British public, not least as she so defiantly rode out his serial infidelity.

The couple’s 2007 split was acrimonious, ending in a two-year legal wrangle over finances which only concluded in 2013.

‘It didn’t finish in a good way,’ she says now of the relationship. ‘We were together for ten years, we were like husband and wife sharing a lot of intense times and I am the sort of person always trying to keep a good relationship, but in our particular case, with Sven, I made it very clear when we finished with the lawyers that I did not want contact. We know how to get in touch by phone, but we haven’t met again, and I have no desire to do so.’

Fascinatingly, it is not his infidelity that rankles, but his handling of their finances. ‘On the financial side this was the worst way he behaved,’ she declares. ‘Absolutely.’

It can’t have helped future relations that in his 2013 autobiography he described her as being ‘too demanding’. That seems unnecessarily unkind, given what he put her through. ‘I didn’t read the book, so I don’t really know what he meant by that term,’ she insists airily. ‘And demanding is not necessarily a negative thing. Anyway I was the minimum demanding with him. So it was definitely unkind.’

By the time Sven and Nancy had sorted their financial differences Nancy was also the veteran of an eight-month relationship with theatre director Trevor Nunn, 20 years her senior.

They seemed an unlikely match, I tell her. ‘That was an intense, passionate love affair, very fast-burning, all-consuming,’ she says.

‘We had a difference in age, but truth be told I don’t think he could handle a woman like me.’ She laughs uproariously.

But then, who is a match for Nancy? Three years later, she was spotted on the party circuit hand in hand with the late Mark Shand, an environmentalist and the debonair younger brother of our Queen consort, who died in 2014, although she insists today their relationship was purely platonic.

‘We had a good friendship, and we had the same thoughts about the world but that is all,’ she insists. ‘He was a wonderful man, very idealistic in what he was doing, a very lovely person.’

Fast forward eight years and today she is resolutely single, following the end of a relationship a year ago which she describes as ‘complex’.

‘There is no one special on the scene,’ she declares. ‘I have more focus on other interests, but most of all I realise that mentally, it is good for me to be single. I don’t think I want to go back to live with anybody again. It’s lovely to share time with someone and interests but I treasure my space.

Maybe it will happen, but it has to be added value to what is my life at the moment. And I have new projects, lots of things I want to achieve.’ Turning 60 last year doesn’t seem to have disturbed a woman who for many years would not reveal the numbers on her birth certificate.

‘First, I look more beautiful than I did years ago. People meet me and they think I am 40, 45 years, and I do feel that. I feel that my sex appeal hasn’t diminished at all,’ she says.

‘The difference between the beauty of a girl in their 20s and their 50s is you have more stories to tell. You have more experience, the charisma, the personality is more charming. So I do not worry.’

This is vintage Nancy, and a reminder that that unofficial role ‘First Lady of Football’ may never again be filled, or certainly not by anyone quite like her.

Naturally, she agrees. ‘Yes, I think you are right,’ she says. ‘The way I went into English life was extraordinary. I do hope I am a little bit of a national treasure as well.’