Celtic’s Joe Hart has officially been crowned the Scottish Premier League’s sexist footballer following a recent study conducted. The 36 year old who has enjoyed a fine career as both England and Manchester City’s number appears to be ageing like fine wine if our study is anything to go by.
In the study we selected 99 footballers from the Most Valuable Players list on TransferMarkt, specifically focusing on those in the Scottish Premiership with Hart leading the way in the SPL. Despite being one of the oldest players in the SPL, it’s proven no issue for the Englishman.
To determine the most attractive player in the Scottish Premiership, we amalgamated all the collected data, considering the following factors: player’s height, with a significance of 15%; estimated earnings, with a significance of 45%; conformity to the Golden Ratio, with a significance of 30%; and the percentage of positive comments regarding attractiveness on Instagram, with a significance of 10%. Each player received a score out of 10 based on this combined data.
Hart achieved a high attractiveness score of 7.5, ahead of his Glasgow rival Todd Cantwell of Rangers, who earned a score of 5.1. Cantwell moved to Rangers to revive his career after being frozen out at his former club Norwich City. The move to Rangers appears to be benefiting him both on and off the pitch. Cantwell is joined in the top 3 by his team mate Kemar Roofe who ranks 3rd in the list.
Despite their challenges on the pitch, Livingston has made an impressive entry into the top tiers of the league in an unconventional category. Their striker, Joel Noble, ranks fourth in the attractiveness rankings with a score of 5.0. Notably, he boasts the second-highest proportion of flattering comments on his social media posts, with 27.7% deemed as such.
Livingston are next in action this weekend, as they’re set to take on Rangers, in what is certain to be a tricky test for Noble and his team-mates. Sky Bet have priced Livingston at 10/1 to win the match against the Gers, and be sure to use the Sky Bet sign-up offer when signing up to this betting site, as they’re offering a sizeable amount in free bets to their new customers.
The majority of the top ten spots are occupied by players from Rangers and Celtic, with Steven Davis holding fifth place, Nathaniel Phillips in sixth, and Sam Lamars in seventh. Rhys Williams of Aberdeen disrupts the Glasgow clubs’ hold on the rankings by taking eighth place. Williams has the distinction of having the highest percentage of complimentary comments, with a score of 30.3%.
Completing the top ten most attractive SPL players are Rangers’ Rabbi Matondo and Jack Butland. Butland, who made his breakthrough at Birmingham City and went on to play for teams including Stoke City, Derby County, Crystal Palace, and Manchester United, leads the top ten in the Transfer Market Multiplied Metric.
Methodology
We initiated our study by selecting 99 footballers from the Most Valuable Players list on TransferMarkt, specifically focusing on those in the Scottish Premiership. To gain a comprehensive understanding of each player’s public perception and their relative worth we looked at their average transfer value, the total number of professional seasons they’ve played, and their height. We also utilised Instagram where we collected a range of data: comments from five distinct posts for each player and five images that were representative of their profile.
Our next step was to analyse the nature of the comments. To gauge which comments had a flirtatious or “sexy” undertone, we predefined a list of emojis – namely, heart eyes, smiling face with three hearts, kissing heart, and several others. We then calculated the proportion of comments for each player that contained at least one of these emojis.
In parallel, we sought to estimate the earnings of each player. This was done by multiplying their average transfer value by their total number of professional seasons. Furthermore, to provide an objective measure of a player’s physical attractiveness, we utilised the images we had collected and calculated the Golden Ratio, a value often associated with aesthetic appeal.
Finally, to determine the “sexiest” player, we devised a scoring system. This system took into account the player’s height (weighted at 15%), our money-made estimate (45%), the Golden Ratio calculation (30%), and the percentage of flirtatious comments on Instagram (10%). Based on these combined metrics, we assigned a score to each player, ranging from 1 to 10, with 10 indicating the highest level of perceived attractiveness.
