After Teddy Riner announced his candidacy for French president, City AM took a look at the stars that swapped the pitch for politics, sport for service

“If refusing to bow my head and refusing to accept chaos makes me crazy, then yes, I am completely crazy.” Those are the words of the latest person to throw their name into the ring to become the president of France in 2027, in what is seen as a wide open race to replace Emmanuel Macron. 

“France does not need a professional politician lecturing and bickering all day long. It needs common sense, firmness, justice, and a state that puts things back in order,” they added.

The aforementioned one-line zingers aren’t those of someone inside the traditional bubble, however, but instead of five-time Olympic champion judo fighter Teddy Riner – one of the republic’s most popular sportspeople.

He will challenge the likes of Marine Le Pen to lead L’Hexagone, but by no means is he the first sports star to swap the sport for service.

Sport for service

Notably, former cricketer Imran Khan, footballer George Weah and hurler Jack Lynch went from the pitch to politics, becoming heads of state. Khan was leader of Pakistan before his imprisonment, while Weah led Liberia between 2018 and 2024 and Lynch was the elected Taoiseach for much of the 1970s.

Riner isn’t the only combatant to seek office, either. Former heavyweight boxer Vitali Klitschko answered the call from Ukraine to become Mayor of Kyiv in 2014, while Manny Pacquiao served as both a congressman and senator in his native Philippines between 2010 and 2022 and even attempted a run at the presidency. On these shores, London 2012 gold medal winner Luke Campbell is currently serving as Reform UK’s Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire.

Sticking in Blighty, former national 100m record holder Menzies Campbell was briefly leader of the Liberal Democrats while few can look past Lord Sebastian Coe’s involvement in politics; he went from a glittering 1,500m career to the green benches of the House of Commons before going on to leading World Athletics and having a crack at being elected as president of the International Olympic Committee. Less successful was rower James Cracknell, who failed in an attempt to become an MP in 2024.

Pitch for the future

Former Georgian centre-back Kakha Kaladze was elected as the mayor of the country’s capital, Tbilisi, while ex-Manchester City striker Mikheil Kavelashvili was in 2024 sworn in as the country’s president. And in India World Cup winner Gautam Gambhir was elected to parliament for a five-year term in 2019. Australian back-row David Pocock is now a senator Down Under, too.

The most recent major elections saw the Democrats take control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US. And while the likes of NBA champion Bill Bradley and NFL star Jack Kemp have previously been legislators – the latter as a secretary of state in George Bush’s administration – last week’s election saw former New York Yankees baseball player Mark Teixeira, former Tennessee Titans linebacker Colin Allred and wheelchair basketball gold medallist Josh Turek all elected for the first time.

So when Riner sits at his grand desk and calls for change, he does so off the back of many other sports stars who have ditched the sporting limelight for podiums and politics. A win wouldn’t make him the first to succeed, but the attributes sport may have developed in him and others have precedent in translating into votes.