Footballers' homes by Nick Easen When Country Life, the U.K. bible for landed gentry, checked who was snatching up the £2 million-plus country houses advertised in its glossy opening pages, it was no real surprise that professional footballers featured prominently.

Twenty such properties had been purchased by footballers since 2003. An estimated £85 million per year is spent by footballers on homes in the U.K. , according to a document prepared for the game's governing body in England , the Football Association.

With even journeymen's salaries in England 's Premier League running to the tens of thousands of pounds per week, it's hardly a strain on the financial hamstrings to kick in a mortgage on a property costing several million. "If you can afford to buy a new car, you tend to do so. If you can buy a new mansion, you also tend to do so," says Richard Winter, director of Savills' property firm. "And this is what these footballers do."

Winter's office is near the Cobham, Surrey training ground of London club Chelsea, one the best-paying employers in the Premier League. But £1 million won't get you anything close to a five-bedroom house in this upmarket area, which is convenient to both London 's nightlife and its two main airports. In the past three years, Savills has handled £15 million in sales for Chelsea players.

It is the same in Surrey as it is in "Gold Trafford"--the prosperous Wilmslow-Alderley Edge-Hale triangle area in Cheshire , just outside Manchester --or in Hampstead in north London . In all these districts, teammates past and present from Chelsea to Manchester United and Arsenal, respectively, have brought trophy houses after filling up their golden boots.

"They want extravagance, ultra-modern and something very sexy," says Trevor Abrahamsohn from Glentree Estates, who has sold half a dozen £700,000-plus properties in north London to footballers.

For a sense of the typical player's house, look at the hit British television series Footballers' Wives. The mock-Georgian mansion featured in the show, with gold embossed fountains in the front garden, a swimming pool with water cascading from the ceiling and wall-to-wall flat-screen TVs, is truly real-life Premiership chic.

Some owners have flattened early 20th-century estates to make way for new pink Doric columns and Welsh-dragon-tiled pools, while one burrowed under a road to give himself a secluded route to his swimming pool. Others have resorted to high gates and extensive grounds to distance themselves from Britain 's voracious paparazzi.

Having played in front of 50,000 people, "What they want when they go home is privacy," says Savills' Winter. And that's what they're buying--from fortress-style properties in gated communities to secluded, secure estates away from the fans, photographers and burglars.

For some, that has meant buying far from home. At least six England internationals including Real Madrid's David Beckham and Newcastle United's Michael Owen have bought villas in Palm-Jumeirah, an artificial island in the United Arab Emirates , where stars from the entertainment world, like Brad Pitt and Robbie Williams, are neighbors. Their holiday homes have already doubled in value even though the site is still under construction.

Footballers "can also become quite canny investors," says Glentree's Abrahamsohn: Arsenal's Sol Campbell has been labeled a part-time property developer; Owen has property in Portugal as well as flats in Liverpool and Dubai ; and Beckham owns real estate in Madrid and on the French Riviera.

Yet back home, the soccer squirearchy is not devoid of taste. Among top footballers' properties, there's a Grade II listed Tudor building, a house with a lordly title, and a glass-and-steel masterpiece from an ex-head of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

See who owns what in our slide show of footballers' home

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