Most self-confessed watch fans would roll their eyes so hard corrective surgery would be required if you suggested this in their company, however. Footballers – for of course that’s who we’re talking about – aren’t respected for their horological taste. There are exceptions, like Messrs Héctor Bellerín or Xabi Alonso. But even saying that reinforces the general point: it doesn’t matter how hard-to-get Mr Zlatan Ibrahimović’s gem-set Patek Philippe Nautilus is, or how mechanically complex the tourbillons on Mr Cristiano Ronaldo’s latest Jacob & Co, you will not find them hailed for their appreciation of Switzerland’s most glittering export. (If where you live, football is played with your hands, there are a few notable watches to be found, but today we’re talking soccer.)

To suggest that footballers are judged, and judged harshly, for their spending decisions is nothing new. Journalists have made hay out of top-flight footballers’ questionable fashion choices for decades (although fair’s fair, we do also like to shine a light on the better-dressed players, here and here). It doesn’t help that newly-moneyed young men tend to follow a pretty predictable route: Ferraris, mansions and Rolexes are pretty much the “first team contract starter pack”.

Today’s players are a bit better protected by their advisors, and the exposure of the racially biased editorial decisions underpinning the tabloid coverage of players’ largesse highlighted by Mr Raheem Sterling, among others, should have helped us to think twice about our attitudes. But the basic situation remains: young men, often from backgrounds of below average wealth, become multi-millionaires overnight when they sign senior club deals. And with more money in the game than ever, it’s not just the Champions League clubs that can transform a player’s life like that – thousands of footballers across Europe are paid enough to buy a luxury watch every single week.

So, who can blame them? Luxury brands invest heavily in marketing their products as aspirational, “one-day” purchases. Then, when someone actually goes and buys the advertised lifestyle, society judges them for their lack of originality. Just because you haven’t cultivated your tastes over many years, does that make your watch purchases less meaningful? We paint footballers as mindless magpies, snapping up the latest bejewelled trinket on a whim, but how different is that really from the industrialists or aristocrats placing their bids at the auction house?

Watch websites, watch writers and the watch community on Instagram all enthuse madly about the latest Audemars Piguet Openworked Royal Oak. So, what is this emotion – jealousy? – that we feel when we look at Mr Karim Benzema, flexing just such a watch, and resent that it isn’t owned by someone with a better understanding of the principles of internal angle bevelling? Are we riled by the homogeneity on display – seeing that Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille and Patek Philippe dominate the wristwear of the dressing room? What about the homogeneity of collecting 1960s chronographs, or patinated dive watches? Oh, that’s very different.

You can say the same about art, or wine, or cars. To the chagrin of lifelong connoisseurs, armchair pundits, and ordinary folk whose budgets will never stretch, there is no entrance exam for ownership. The only qualification is your ability to pay, and, in this regard, the 21st century has equipped footballers beyond their highest expectations.

Of course, the marketplace this creates is – ironically – what enables “true” collectors to act with such snobbery in the first place. The marketing clout of a dozen or so brands places them front of mind when a hotshot striker fancies his first Swiss watch, and by definition, all other brands exist on a sliding scale of familiarity. The seasoned watch buyer invests in lesser-known brands from independent makers, but wants his choices to remain permanently outside the mainstream. If these outsider brands get too successful, they might attract the attention of young sportsmen, and that wouldn’t do. Luckily for the committed snob, there are always more esoteric watchmakers to which they can turn.

I’ve always struggled with the argument that brands making products that you don’t care for and selling them to highly visible individuals can spoil your own appreciation. Do I really want a Patek Philippe if that places me in the same club as the owner of a rainbow gem-set Aquanaut that’s got all the subtlety of a fairground prize? Actually, yes I do, in exactly the same way that I lust after a Porsche 911 GT3 RS regardless of what ghastly colour some influencer wraps his car.

Of course there are watches that aren’t to my taste, but they certainly aren’t confined to the ones picked out by Messrs Messi, Neymar et al. It’s a broad church, and, in fact, watch companies need it that way. If watchmakers selling high-margin creations to celebrities spoils things for you, would you rather they focus their efforts on making intricate new complications in 37mm cases aimed exclusively at, well, you? That way bankruptcy lies. We all recognise the need – goodness knows watch CEOs talk about it enough – to attract a younger, wider audience to watches if this passion we enjoy is going to survive the next 50 years. God forbid that come about via the endorsement of the most famous individuals on the planet.

So, as we all settle into the 2022 World Cup – a World Cup with money running through it like, er, oil – let’s try not to judge Messrs Mbappé, Havertz or Lewandowski for what they flaunt off the pitch. Maybe, just maybe, they’re helping to sustain something we hold dear. And even if they aren’t, they’re just young men living the lifestyle that – through our viewership – we’ve all helped to fund. And really, where’s the harm in that?