WHAT the hell is going on with our footballers?

There was once a golden era, when top-flight players paraded their unadulterated blokeyness like a badge of honour.

A time when showing off a chest full of hair, a battered nose and a monster, unkempt ’tache said to the world: “I am as hard as nails, don’t mess with me.”

But football’s rough, tough, gruff exterior has disappeared – and our footballers have gone soft.

Led by the Premier League’s arch-metrosexual Cristiano Ronaldo, football this summer has gone camper than a row of tents.

This week Ronaldo continued his holiday tour by hanging out in a pair of tight silver shorts in LA – and had the world’s gay men coming over all funny.

But a perfectly-waxed chest and budgie-smuggling shorts are just the tip of the iceberg.

A Sun investigation has found the manbag and grooming obsession is rife among our highly-paid stars.

Chelsea ace Frank Lampard refused to go anywhere this summer without his salmon pink vest and matching shorts.

He has also been lugging around wife Elen Rives’ fuchsia handbag.

Unimpressed … Ron Harris

Italian World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro actually SHAVED his mate’s chest and armpits on the deck of their holiday yacht this week in a show of shameless male bonding.

And Liverpool and Spain striker Fernando Torres spent most of last month by the pool with an Alice band in his hair while leafing through lifestyle magazines.

Legendary Seventies Chelsea axeman Ron “Chopper” Harris says modern-day footballers should hang their heads in shame.

He told The Sun: “If I had walked into the Chelsea dressing room with a waxed chest, I would have been told where to go.

“Now it’s almost compulsory to have a pink pair of boots.

“The game has become so much about money that footballers believe they are movie stars or pop stars these days.

“They are obsessed with how they look. I used to wear normal boxer shorts and earned £295 a week when I left in 1980. I got my hair cut for less than a fiver. Football has gone completely soft.

“Instead of going to a holiday villa in Dubai or a yacht in the Med, we were given a free holiday to Pontin’s every year.

“We would turn up, have our picture taken at the reception and enjoy a fortnight with the family. It was pretty simple but it was alright for us.”

Bag blast … Neville Southall

It is perhaps David Beckham, the Godfather of footie femininity, who is responsible for this summer’s preening madness.

LA Galaxy star Becks started it all in 1998 when he donned his sarong. But who would have thought that would be considered positively manly compared to today’s girly goings-on?

But to prove he is still the king of metrosexuality, Becks cracked out the Armani undies this summer in a photoshoot aimed squarely at the gay market. The resulting snaps were blown up and sprawled across a skyscraper in San Francisco.

And West Ham ace Freddie Ljungberg, who never disappoints when it comes to camp, was snapped in a fetching pair of flowery shorts holidaying with his buddies in the sun.

Some players get the metromania look completely wrong.

Man City midfielder Stephen Ireland probably thought he was making a statement about his feminine side when he pitched up in his pimped-out black Range Rover. But the gaudy hot pink finish is just cringeworthy.

Neville Southall, the former Everton and Wales goalkeeper – and all-round brick outhouse of a man – says: “Football is no longer working class. It’s so far removed from the people who work five days a week in the factory. It’s unbelievable.

“Players have so much money they can buy whatever they want. How many manbags can you have?

“In my day, the only thing that vaguely resembled a manbag was the bag I kept my gloves in.

“Since football became a non-contact sport, the players have become totally vain.

“When I was playing, if you’d turned up in some of the get-up they wear, you would have been shown to your own private dressing room. Non-league football is where it’s at now – they are proper footballers.”

But before footie fans bow to the pressure, buy a tight pair of silver shorts and book themselves in for a back, sack and crack wax, there is a hint of masculinity still left in the game.

For even in the era of Alice bands, Armani underpants and fake tan, there is one footballer who is flying the flag for rough-as-old boots players. Step forward, Wayne Rooney.

Hair today, gone tomorrow … Fabio Cannavaro shaves his friend’s chest

Preening Portuguese … Cristiano Ronaldo

Tons of Attitude … Becks posed for gay mag

Icon … Freddie Ljungberg

Fernando Torres … sporting an alice band

Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1467701.ece