One of football's greatest ever players was at the centre of a huge love storm when he allegedly cheated on his Miss World wife with a Sky Sports journalist.
Legendary Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who turned 48 on Wednesday (January 28), was known for his clean sheets between the sticks for Juventus for 17 years, but it appeared they didn’t exist in his life away from the pitch.
Buffon, who won Serie A a staggering 10 times, began dating the stunning Miss Czech Republic 1998 Alena Seredova, who also finished in the top five at Miss World that year, in 2005. The glamorous pair went on to marry in a lavish ceremony in Prague in June 2011 and to have two children together.
Their relationship ended in May 2014 when Buffon announced he had separated from Alena, before getting together with Italian journalist Ilaria D'Amico the following year.
But his relationship with the long-running Sky Sports Italia host reportedly started well before that. Buffon's supposed affair while married to the mother of his two children was one of the biggest love sagas in sport.
And heartbroken Alena recalled the moment when she appeared to be the only person unaware of Buffon's alleged infidelity, as she cheered him on from the stands.
"I went to the stadium to cheer, but everyone knew. All my so-called friends and football acquaintances told me they knew. And then I stopped going to the stadiums," she claimed.
Alena later added: "I'd liked to have found out that my marriage was broken in a different way than through the press."
The goalkeeper and Ilaria met at a charity dinner years before he and Alena divorced in 2014. Just one year later, their relationship was public and the couple had a child together the following year.
It’s clear the two have passion for each other, with a magazine in Italy reporting that neighbours started to complain about the noise of their lovemaking as they bonked "like rabbits".
With 176 international caps, Buffon is the most capped goalkeeper of all time, the most capped player in the history of the Italy national team, and the player who has captained the Azzurri the most times.
But Alena slammed her ex-husband's character during an Instagram Q&A almost a decade after they split, when she wrote: "In my opinion Buffon doesn't understand s*** about women."
However, she somehow managed to forgive Buffon for his purported indiscretions despite suffering "so much pain" in their relationship.
She replied to one fan who asked her how she came to forgive him: "I think the passage is very long, for everyone, a lot also depends on the new company you are with. Obviously the disappointment remains."
Alena also claimed: "It's worth underlining just one thing: that I've never talked about my ex-husband and I'm not starting now. So I really care about peace."
Now remarried to businessman Alessandro Nasi, with whom she shares a baby girl, Alena lauded how she feels she is finally being treated with respect.
"I had it clear and then a little while later I met Alessandro. I believe in what a person conveys and what they are ready for.
"We fell in love with each other and I like the fact that we are good together."
Buffon meanwhile, who has never disputed Alena's claims of an affair, got engaged to Ilaria in 2017, before they married in Tuscany in September 2024.
