These are the 23 biggest and best Cult-Soccer players of all time.

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Professional footballers, superstar and still be fat? That may have gone back then. You could think. Maybe in the 50s. When Helmut Rahn and Ferenc Puskás were still kicking the ball.

But wrong. Also in the last 30 years, there were them. The successful fatteners. They had already from the beginning of their career a few kilos too much on it. And they didn't care at all about that and their performance, too. But there are also other examples.

The JoJo fatteners sometimes thick, sometimes thin and the “Pork Out” fatteners who gained weight every year until it was no longer possible. Sometimes it was the sweet life, alcohol or other drugs, sometimes it was protracted injuries. The reasons for the fattening are manifold.

We've compiled the list of the 23 fattest professional footballers of all time, who were either successful despite being fat, cult or somehow stood out from the monotony. And numbers 4, 12, 18 and 22 are real legends. In their own way.Is he the best soccer player of all time? Or Pele after all? Or Messi? Anyway, in 2005, he had to have his stomach reduced. Too fat. He belonged to the Jojo category during his career.

Sometimes he was thin, sometimes fat, sometimes in between. That had a lot to do with lifestyle, drugs, and predisposition. Whether he is the best soccer player of all time or Pele, or Messi or CR7, has not been decided.

Maradona is the best sometimes fat footballer of all time in any case. And an example of the Jojo Pork out syndrome. Pork out syndrome stands for the American husbands who increase by an average of 1 kilogram every year after marriage.

We use the term “footballer” to describe a person who, at some point, reduced his or her urge to move, but not his or her calorie intake. However, they tried to lose weight when they noticed that their stature changed from Gothic to Baroque. That worked at first but was not permanent. Then it went one step back in weight and two steps forward – JoJo.

At the 1994 World Cup, he didn't pass the drug test and put it on a drink he had taken to lose weight. Well.

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When you saw Steve McNulty on a soccer field, you thought of something like the Kreisliga in Middle Franconia on Sundays at 11.00 a.m. or the equivalent in Northern England.

Professional football – that just looked wrong. That's why Steve McNulty did his apprenticeship in Liverpool but then worked for clubs like Tranmere Rovers or Luton Town for 13 years. But there he was always a cult player. After all, he was captain of Liverpool FC U19 and was trained at Anfield Academy. He was Luton's Player of the Year in the 2013-14 promotion season and was sold to Brentford for GBP 600,000. He was also named to the PFA League Two Team of the Year.

So long Sumo. You could have become a real big guy. Instead, his career now comes to an end with the Tranmere Rovers in the 5th division in England.

It was not bad for someone who was born in 1983 and whose diet consisted of pints and pies.

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The Dane played 33 times for the national team and was the brain of the Liverpool midfield in the late 80s and early 90s. He took part in the European Championship in 1984 and the World Championship in 1986.

Jan Mölby is a cousin of Johnny Mølby, who became European Champion in 1992. Mølby started his professional career in his hometown at Kolding IF. There he was appointed team captain at the age of 19. He quickly recommended himself outside Denmark and moved to Ajax Amsterdam in 1982, where he was to play for two years.

In 1984 he moved to the Premier League at FC Liverpool. Cult on Anfield Road because of his stature and attitude to life, his career went down the drain when he seriously injured himself after 1992 foul in the game against ManU. Every time he was injured, he increased a lot. But this time he didn't come back properly.

In Liverpool, he was a feared penalty shooter. Of the 62 goals he scored for the club, 42 were goals scored by penalty kicks. In a cup match against Coventry City, he even managed a penalty-hat trick. In 1995 he was awarded several times. First, he played for FC Barnsley, then for Norwich City. He then went to Swansea City, where he played until 1998.

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Although not quite as “robust” as the other guys on the list, Le Tiss fits perfectly into the ranking.

Instead of training lazy and never averse to a good pint of camp, Le Tiss owed his success to his innate talent, playing for FC Southampton throughout his professional career (1986-2002). He was mostly used in the attacking midfield. He was known for his dribbling and shooting qualities, but was also considered lazy to run. In Southampton, he enjoys cult status due to his loyalty to the club and his most spectacular goals and is also known as Le God.

Le Tissier was also considered to be an excellent free-kick shooter and a sure-fire penalty shooter. He scored 48 out of 49 penalty kicks.

This makes him statistically the safest penalty taker in the Premier League to this day. Fortunately for Germany, Le God was not nominated either in 1990 or 1996.

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The goalkeeper legend played almost 600 times for FC Everton, and he never looked like a professional footballer during all these games.

Pork out – the steady way. On the contrary, he was growing every year. Pork out – the stable way. As a teenager, he was denied a professional career with the Bolton Wanderers. He learned the profession of a bricklayer and played in amateur teams. In 1981 he began his professional career at Everton FC, where he played 578 league matches until 1997. With 92 international games, he is a record Welsh national player. He won the English Football Championship with Everton in 1985 and 1987, the English FA Cup in 1984 and 1995 and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1984/85.

In the same year, he was also voted Footballer of the Year in Great Britain. The goalkeeper, nickname “Big Nev,” had quick reflexes which only a few would attribute to such a tall and heavy man due to his control of the penalty area.

After his Everton career ended in 1997, Southall played as a player-coach in Southend, Stoke, Torquay, Bradford, and Shrewsbury. He currently coaches the Welsh U-19 national team. Southall is a cult; there even is a play entitled “Neville Southall's Washbag.”

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Ronny was too fat when he returned from his summer vacation in 2013. And because he had not yet been slim a few weeks later, coach Jos Luhukay initially left him out at Hertha BSC's Bundesliga opener against Eintracht Frankfurt.

There he smiled broadly while running warm. Maybe he had already guessed that he would weigh his weight through Frankfurt's defense shortly before the end to achieve the 6:1. When that happened, nobody had to jump up in the stadium because everyone was already standing. But because soccer in the Bundesliga also has something to do with running and not just shooting from a standing start, the career went downhill at some point. He could have been a big man in the 70s, ….

On August 31, 2016, the contract between Ronny and Hertha BSC was terminated because the player no longer played a role in the club's plans. Ronny should get the possibility to join a new club even after the transfer ban.

In 2017 Ronny signed a contract with Fortaleza EC.

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Fat Rating: 9/10 Performance (when rate fat) Rating: 6/10

Fat Flop or Chubby Champion? CHUBBY CHAMPIONThere was a time when the name Adriano spread fear and terror among the European defenders. That was at the beginning of his career.

Then to the end – it was rather a broad grin. In between were about 15 kilos of weight gain. After all, Adriano played 48 times for the Brazilian national team and scored 27 goals.

In the 2011/12 season, Adriano even suffered a kind of house arrest because the Corinthians from Sao Paulo demanded that he reduce his weight.

Adriano could have been a big one. He had the talent. And the successes at the beginning of his career, too. But then came the lack of discipline and the “sweet life”.

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Fat Rating: 8/10 Performance (when rate fat) Rating: 1/10

Fat Flop or Chubby Champion? FAT FLOP (brilliant player before)Tomas Brolin's successful career ended around the time he arrived in England, more precisely in Leeds. The 47-time Swedish international did not get along as well with English drinking habits, and eating habits as a Premier League career would have required. On November 17, 1995, he announced his move to Leeds United. Leeds had brought Anthony Yeboah from Frankfurt at the beginning of the 1995 season, and Leeds coach Howard Wilkinson was planning with Brolin and Yeboah.

One day after signing a contract with the English, Brolin made his Premier League debut. In the game against Newcastle United, the offensive player replaced Mark Ford in the 82nd minute. Four days later he was already in the club's starting eleven. But in the following time, things went rather bad for Brolin. After initial problems with coach Wilkinson and discussions about Brolin's weight, there was an exchange of blows between him and his coach on April 1, 1996. Brolin reported a change to his former club IFK Norrköping on Swedish television as an April Fool's joke, thereby annoying his boss.

On the same day, he had to apologize personally to Wilkinson. The relationship between the two didn't get any better in the coming months, and soon, the signs were back to separation. In the summer of 1996, Brolin set out to find a new club. The Swiss club FC Zurich borrowed the Swedish club after no club had agreed to buy him for a long time. Brolin felt comfortable with his new employer and wanted to stay with the Alpenklub.

But George Graham ordered Brolin back to England in October. Although the loan period was only valid until 30 September, Brolin was again on the run for Zurich against FC St. Gallen on 9 October. Graham then gave him an ultimatum until November 6 to report to the club after it had failed to reach him. On May 12, 1998, Brolin, then 29, announced the end of his career as a professional player. His last appearance was on August 29, 1998, with Hudiksvall's ABK against Kiruna FF, when he was substituted as a goalkeeper for the past 15 minutes.

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The nickname ‘The Beast' wasn't a coincidence. “People look at me and think, ‘He's unfit', but some of the criticism is unfair,” he said in 2007.

“It's something I have to put up with – it's just the way I am.”

Well then …The center forward never made it into the Premier League, but he played more than 50 league games each for York City, Macclesfield Town, Preston North End, and Fleetwood Town.

Parkin scored 167 goals in more than 500 games. Not bad odds. But with a little less weight it could have been a few goals more. Finally, the career in the 5th English league came to an end. Parkin was regularly popular among fans, who had a special song for him, which was also the life motto of the striker:

“Feed The Beast and he will score”

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180 cm and 101.5 kilograms – these are not necessarily the values of a normal professional footballer. Maybe they were just muscles after all.

Adebayo Akinfenwa also admits this bluntly: “Because of my size, I automatically fall into the category of being too big to be a footballer.”

Nevertheless, he was quite successful. Maybe it was just muscles. The striker has scored 165 goals in more than 500 games so far. He currently plays for the Wycombe Wanderers in the English League 2.

Rumors have it that he can loosely press a bench to 200 kilograms, about twice his own body weight. Akinfenwa has his own fashion label with the fitting name Beast Mode On. Of course, the “Strong Man” image of the player stands in the foreground.

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Ailton Goncalves da Silva, or simply ‘Ailton', was a highly talented Brazilian striker who actually hit wherever he played. Even though he was physically fit at one time or another, he still looked kind of “chubby”.

His weight fluctuated a lot during his career and just at the end, he settled above what would have been good for a striker. Ailton scored 205 goals in 476 games for teams like Werder Bremen, Schalke, and Besiktas. That could have been much more. With Werder Bremen, the extremely fast middle striker, despite his weight, became German Champion, Cup winner, and top scorer in the Bundesliga in 2004. In the same year, he was also the first foreigner to be voted Footballer of the Year in Germany.

He also played in the Bundesliga for FC Schalke 04, Hamburger SV and MSV Duisburg. He scored a total of 106 Bundesliga goals in his career, making him the third of a total of five foreign players to date to score more than 100 goals in the Bundesliga.

Internationally, Toni and Kugelblitz also played in Mexico, Turkey, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Austria, and China. In total, he played for 21 clubs over a period of 20 years. Starting in 2009, he ended his career with subclass clubs in Germany.

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The Dutch goalkeeper began his career with Ajax in the legendary academy. He left early before returning to Ajax 9 years later as the second goalkeeper.

He made it to 3 league games – despite beer belly. He became a Dutch champion two times with Ajax. With FC Volendam he became champion of the second Dutch league.

Verhoeven made his debut in the Dutch honorary division on October 24, 2010, when he replaced the regular Ajax Amsterdam Stekelenburg goalkeeper. He saved the draw for Ajax against Excelsior Rotterdam with three excellent parades in the final minutes.

In the summer of 2012, he moved to FC Utrecht – again as a back-up. In the 2010/11 season, the fans of ADO Den Haag called him Pizza and applauded and sang every touch of the ball accordingly.

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The Irishman Andy Reid had his weight song with the fans.

The song says it all: “Andy Reid, Andy Reid running down the wing. Andy Reid, Andy Reid been to Burger King.” Reid has been playing in the second English league for Nottingham Forest since 2011. Reid made his Premier League debut in 2004/05 on February 5, 2005, when Tottenham beat Portsmouth FC 3-1.

Coach Martin Jol was convinced of the quality of his new arrival and made frequent use of him throughout the season. In May 2005, he scored his first and only goal for Tottenham in a 5-1 win over Aston Villa. In a total of 26 league games, he scored just one goal and was sold to Charlton Athletic for £3,000,000 in August 2006.

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He could have been the best Italian striker ever. If he hadn't had those terrible eating habits.

After his move to Real Madrid, a clause was included in his contract punishing him for every gram of overweight. The weight problem was repeated later at AC Milan. Cassano was considered one of Europe's greatest talents when he was a teenager and distinguished himself with his technical skills and game overview. He is nicknamed Fantantonio because of his spectacular performances.

But Cassano also caused a stir with his lack of discipline and controversial statements. Former national coach Giovanni Trapattoni described Cassano as the “future of Italian football”, and in November 2003 he promptly nominated him for his first appearance in the Italian national team in a friendly match against Poland, where he met and secured a permanent place for the 2004 European Football Championship in Portugal.

He scored two goals in three matches at the European Championship. Cassano was not considered for the 2006 World Cup by Italy's then national coach Marcello Lippi. Shortly after the World Cup, he was reappointed to the squad and was called to two missions in September 2006. After Cassano's strong performances in the 2007/08 season, Roberto Donadoni finally appointed him to the squad for the European Championship. In the following season, Cassano was not considered by the new national coach Marcello Lippi for disciplinary reasons despite strong performances, for which Lippi was heavily criticized. Despite a heart operation in November 2011 and a five-month break, he was appointed to the Italian squad for the European Championship in 2012 by national coach Cesare Prandelli. In the tournament, Cassano was a regular in the Italian storm alongside Mario Balotelli. Cassano scored the first goal in the last match against Ireland (2-0) and was subsequently named Man of the Match. The striker and his team reached the final where Italy lost to Spain. Cassano was initially disregarded by Prandelli but made his comeback in May 2014 when he was substituted in the friendly against Ireland. He also played in the following match against Luxembourg, where he made it into the squad for the 2014 World Cup. At the World Cup, he was substituted in the matches against Costa Rica and Uruguay but was eliminated with Italy in the preliminary round. Since then, Cassano has not been nominated.

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In the 70s Buffy Ettmayer was a technically gifted Austrian midfielder with a formidable shot. And since there wasn't so much running in professional football back then, he was particularly successful at VfB Stuttgart.

Ettmayer began his career in 1963 at FK Austria Vienna, where he scored a goal in seven national league matches until his move to Tyrol in 1966 to FC Wacker Innsbruck. At Innsbruck, he became the spectators' favorite because of his tricks. In the cup final of 1970 against ASK from Linz in the BSFZ-Arena he scored the 1:0 winning goal in front of 1800 spectators in the 53rd minute and thus secured the first championship win in the history of the club in this competition. In 1971 FC Wacker also won the first championship in the club's history with Ettmayer. In the following season, he moved to VfB Stuttgart, where, while he was a heavyweight (85 kg at 1.72 m), he was feared for his tough shots. He scored a total of 34 goals in 97 games for VfB. On January 26, 1974, Ettmayer scored the 10,000th Bundesliga goal against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Johann Ettmayer had a legendary dialogue with VfB Stuttgart's then coach Albert Sing. When he opened, “Buffy, you don't play, you're too fat,” the coach replied, “I've always been like that. Sing justified his decision with the remark “There are pictures of you, you were thinner”, whereupon Ettmayer countered “They are probably made with a narrow film camera”. VfB qualified sixth for the UEFA Cup in 1973 but was otherwise mediocre. After VfB's first relegation from the Bundesliga in 1975, the paths of the player and the club were separated. From 1975 to 1977, he played for Hamburger SV. He played 27 Bundesliga games for the Hanseatic League in which he scored four goals and was not uncontroversial due to his weight problems. HSV won the 1976 DFB Cup under coach Kuno Klötzer, with Ettmayer only playing in the first two rounds of the competition. In 1977, when HSV won the 1977 European Cup of Cup Winners by beating RSC Anderlecht 2-0, they only had a chance against IB Keflavík in the preliminary round of the tournament, who were 3-0 winners for Hamburg.

At the end of the season, he changed to the Swiss second division team FC Lugano for one season. He was the only full-time professional among the half-amateurs, and so he was bored during the day because training only took place in the evening. He finished third with the Ticino team, i.e. a place among the ranks for promotion. From 1978 to 1981, he played in the second Bundesliga Group South for Freiburg FC. He scored 14 goals in 67 games for the German champion of 1907, who at that time occupied places in midfield and qualified in 1981 as 10th for the single-track second Bundesliga of the following season – the last highlight of the club's history; in 1982 FC retired and said goodbye to professional football.

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In Italy – while playing for Lazio Rome – Paul Gascoigne suddenly became fat. As a rule, this always happened later between seasons. 

Then it went up and down with the weight.  Sometimes fatter, sometimes slimmer. At some point, the alcohol was added and it was over with the good performances. Paul Gascoigne was once the greatest footballer in England. Today he is a wreck – after several spooky public appearances and several failed alcohol withdrawals.

How could it have come to this? One of the dramas in Gascoigne's life is that he never seems to get rid of the role of the class rogue. Already as a gifted footballer, he was the notorious clown in all team cabins. And to this day, people gurgle over classics from the anecdotal treasure trove of the ex-professional, who is marked by alcohol and drug addiction. For example when he tells how he switched the football boots of his entire team at the time. Or how he personally steered a bus full of tourists around the Piccadilly Circus. But they love him in England. Boozing is still socially acceptable on the Island.

But in truth, there is nothing more to laugh about him. He is in acute danger, Gascoignes manager commented soon after a performance in 2015 in a conversation with the BBC. “He urgently needs help. It is the low point in the life of the man who used to be the greatest footballer in England, the hope of a sports nation. How could it have come to this?

In fact, young Paul Gascoigne brought everything you need for a good sports story. He came from poor backgrounds, he learned to kick with a tennis ball because his parents couldn't afford a football. He was soon discovered as a great talent and signed a contract with Tottenham Hotspur. In 1988 he was voted “Young Footballer of the Year”. But Gazza made his breakthrough at the 1990 World Cup in Italy, where he led the English team to the semi-finals as an outstanding player.

Unforgotten is the scene in which Gascoigne was given his second yellow card in the duel against Germany – and howled into his jersey unscrupulously because he would now have been banned for a possible final. But it didn't go that far: England was eliminated from the penalty shoot-out against Germany. Perhaps “Gazza” was never better than during this World Cup – dribbling and fighting strong, a driving force with unconventional ideas. And yet even then there was this eerie and self-destructive side. He later described in his autobiography how he couldn't sleep the night before the German game. He wandered restlessly through the hotel and finally competed in a tennis match against two Americans on the hotel's own grounds. And that on the night before the most important match of his career.

One of the world's best strikers of all time – so his story is similar to that of his compatriot Ronaldinho (whom we didn't even include in the list).

Ronaldo is still the top striker who scored the most goals up to the age of 23. At a young age, he was much more successful than Lionel Messi and CR7. He was a 3-time World Soccer Player of the Year and his career in Milan was steeply reduced and overweight became a constant topic, especially when he later played for the Corinthians in his home country. He attributed it to hypothyroidism (deficiency of thyroid hormones) and others to food.

Ronaldo has a lifetime advertising contract with the sporting goods supplier of Nike. At the age of 18, he signed a contract with Nike for ten years, which brought him 28 million German Marks. He made a guest appearance in the episode Marge Online of the 18th Simpsons season in which he spoke about himself.

Ronaldo was also called Ronaldinho (“little Ronaldo”) at the beginning of his career because at this time Ronaldo Rodrigues de Jesus already played a Ronaldo in the national team. For a better distinction de Jesus was also called Ronaldão (“great Ronaldo”). In 1999 Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, also known as Ronaldinho, played his first international match, which is called Ronaldinho Gaúcho in Brazil. Since 2003, Ronaldo, together with Zinédine Zidane, has hosted the Match Against Poverty for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

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Mark had a horrible start at ManU. He was overweight for the first practice and 3 hours late.

“He was overweight,” said, Sir Alex Ferguson. Bosnich disagreed, but it didn't help. He didn't play that often. Bosnich was voted Oceania's Footballer of the Year in 1997. He played 17 times in the Australian senior national team. The goalkeeper also scored in the 13-0 win over the Solomon Islands. He placed fourth with the Socceroos Olympic team at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

In 2002, Bosnich was found to be taking cocaine. He was then dismissed by his former club, Chelsea FC, and suspended by the English Football Association for nine months. After over five years of absence from professional football, Bosnich made a brilliant comeback when he returned to the pitch on 27 July 2008 in the Pre-Season Cup against Sydney FC. The team won 3-0 and Bosnich received a short-term contract in August of the same year with four more league appearances in which his team remained undefeated.

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Walk like an Egyptian was okay. Running, running a lot, and running fast was not the Egyptian's thing.

That's why he got several penalties for overweight from his club, that is, Tottenham Hotspurs. After his move to Middlesbrough, he swore to lose weight, but “puff cake.” After all, he played 51 international matches.

Mido played for AS Rome on hire, Olympique Marseille, Ajax Amsterdam, Celta Vigo and most recently for West Ham United.

He made a name for himself in 2002 when he became Africa's Young Player of the Year. He formed a formidable striker duo with Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Ajax.

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Ruddock was the typical “big center-half”. And the longer he played, the fatter he got. He had a weight clause in almost every contract, no matter what.

Because he was quite successful. His contract with Crystal Palace was terminated by mutual agreement due to weight problems. However, Swindon also stopped the money payments shortly afterward for the same reason. That was the end of a successful career.

Characteristic was his very physical way of playing, which often moved on the edge of what was allowed.

His most famous clubs were FC Southampton and FC Liverpool, where he won the league cup with the latter club in 1995. After the end of his career, he remained a present TV personality in Great Britain and appeared in formats such as I'm a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! the British edition of “Jungle Camp”.

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Danny Shittu is not really fat, but with his 95 kilograms, he is one of the fatter professionals in the Premier League. The Nigerian in the service of FC Millwall knows how to use his powerful body and is especially known for his duel strength.

This is not particularly surprising for the mass of central defenders, most of whom simply bounce off him. Shittu has had some experience in England, but his career is coming to an end and this may be due to his physical condition. Because the former national player has made a lot of progress in recent years.

Shittu made his Nigerian debut in 2002 in a friendly against Paraguay in London. He came as a substitute for a 20-minute assignment in the stadium of his then-employer QPR. It wasn't until 2007 when Berti Vogts took over the Super Eagles' coaching post that Shittu was reappointed and subsequently became a permanent player.

At the Africa Cup of Nations 2008, Shittu was one of the regulars on the defensive and played in all four Nigerian tournament games. In 2010, Shittu was in Nigeria's squad for the World Cup in South Africa and played in all three matches.

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Another former Bundesliga player and Herthaner in this list is Christopher Samba.

He was active for Berlin from 2005 to 2007. The defender only made his breakthrough in England, where he played for the Blackburn Rovers.

Afterward, the power pack played for Dynamo Moscow. With 102 kilograms and a body height of 193 cm, Samba is one of the heaviest professionals in Europe.

The Congolese is not fat, but the right combination of muscles and mass. Nevertheless, he was much better trained at his best.

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