‘What is my life?’ – Robbie Williams recalls surreal Soccer Aid moment and awkward encounter with Diego Maradona imposter

Robbie Williams has performed on the biggest of stages, but it was an appearance on Soccer Aid that left him wondering what the hell happened.

Created by the legendary musician and Jonathan Wilkes in 2006 for children’s charity UNICEF, the best and brightest in the world of football and showbiz play in the world’s largest charity football match.

Wayne Rooney, Luis Figo, Craig David, Brian Lara, Diego Maradona, Alan Shearer, and Williams himself are just a few of the icons to have taken to the field across the last 19 years.

Williams has made seven appearances in total at yearly football charity event, three as a player and four as a coach.

‘What is my life?’

And it was his first time as a player that stands out to the legendary singer as the 51-year-old regaled listeners about a Soccer Aid moment that lives long in the memory.

“Most surreal moment,” Williams began on Thursday’s edition of Drive.

“I’m left-back. Ben Shepherd’s centre-half, and I’m going ‘Sheps! Sheps! Sheps! Left shoulder, Maradona, left shoulder’ and I just had this existential moment, like ‘What is my life?'”

Williams followed up the Soccer Aid story about the time he actually met Maradona… or so he thinks.

Williams ‘meets’ Maradona

Williams recalled how back in 2014 he was performing at an end-of-ski-season event in Austria when he thought he had a chance encounter with one of the game’s greats.

“I’m doing this gig up a ski slope at the end of season in Austria, I’m with my dad, and we’re travelling to the gondolas. Big gig, but you’ve got to get up there in a gondola,” Williams added.

“My security’s come up to me an said: ‘Maradona’s here, and he wants to meet you’.

“And I’m like: ‘Maradona’s in Austria?’ I get out of the car, and there’s ‘Maradona’. I don’t speak Spanish, but we’re very happy to see each other and we have our pictures taken together, and we go up in the gondola.

Getty

Getty

Getty

“My dad’s like, ‘What’s your life like son?’ And I say, ‘It’s amazing, people like Maradona want to come and see me!’

“And then, two days later, I’m looking at the news on the Mac and Maradona is at the Chelsea game, and that Maradona at the Chelsea game hasn’t got a beard. That wasn’t the Maradona that I met.

Goldstein asked if he knew who it was, to which Williams replied: “It was an imposter. It was an impersonator.

“I met the impersonator. He was very happy to see me!”

Williams posted a photo of himself and ‘Maradona’ to his X account at with the caption: “How random just bumped into Maradona on the mountain.. RW x”

Followers were quick to point out that it wasn’t actually Maradona, but Williams has kept the post on his account.

Williams also discussed England and whether the Three Lions can go on to win the World Cup this summer during his exclusive interview on talkSPORT Drive.

On England’s chances at the USA, Mexico and Canada, Williams said: “I met Thomas Tuchel at Christmas, we were in the same place at the same hotel – I met him and Harry Kane.

“Tuchel is funny, he’s eccentric, there’s a madness about him which is intruiging and you like him because of it.

“For anybody to get to the top of the top, there needs to be some sort of madness and Tuchel has got that.

“And because of that and the players we have, we might just tip it over the line [at the 2026 World Cup].”