Family involvement in football is a tale as old as time. From your father shouting abuse at the referee during an Under 9s grassroots match to answering the phone as your agent 15 years later - the line between personal and professional family relationships in the sport is often blurred.
When footballers are playing for their local team, who is there with them? Their family. When they earn their first academy contract? Yep, their family is there too. And when they break into the professional game? You get the gist.
Whether it's just their parents or their siblings, family members are who players lean on in the euphoric yet brutal reality of a career in professional football.
The majority of the time, these family members collect their pom poms and cheer on their nearest and dearest from the stands, like they are still that young child at the local park. Or sometimes they whack on a 'Free Kobbie Mainoo' shirt and post it on Instagram, as we saw on Monday night.
But as is becoming more common in the modern game, some of the world's best players entrust family members during important contract negotiations and transfers instead of actual agents. This is where those lines get blurred.
In either case, the emotion that comes with being invested in your child's or siblings' career can lead to social media outbursts, fallouts, and more. Daily Mail Sport takes a look at the most famous occasions where family has meddled in a player's career.
Kobbie Mainoo's brothers t-shirt
We can't start anywhere else, can we? On Monday night, Kobbie Mainoo's brother, former Love Island star Jordan Mainoo-Hames, decided to take aim at Ruben Amorim as he protested his sibling's lack of game time.
Mainoo was once the jewel of United's midfield after breaking through in 2023, but these days he struggles for game time under Amorim, who is seemingly not his biggest fan, stating that he would be 'really pleased' if the 20-year-old requested to move away from Old Trafford on loan.
On Monday night, Mainoo came off the bench in the second half for United during their bonkers 4-4 draw with Bournemouth, but he is yet to not start a Premier League game this season, seeing just 212 minutes of action.
Mainoo-Hames, who was a contestant on the fifth series of the hit ITV dating show in 2019, was spotted inside Old Trafford on Monday wearing a black shirt reading 'Free Kobbie Mainoo' in an apparent dig at the Portuguese.
He then controversially posted a picture of himself in the t-shirt, while leaning on advertising hoardings, to his 682,000 Instagram followers to make sure the message was loud and clear.
Garnacho's controversy-hit brother
Agents in football regularly like to stay out of the spotlight, keeping quiet as they work on dealings to ensure the best possible outcome for their client.
An example of this is Jorge Mendes, Cristiano Ronaldo's agent, is one of the most respected player representatives in the game, but do we ever hear much from him? No, not really.
But when you mix the emotional connection of being one's sibling with the responsibility of looking after their career, well, things can be very different. Alejandro Garnacho knows this all too well.
The Chelsea winger's brother, Roberto, who is also his agent, is not one to hold back when he feels his sibling is being mistreated.
During the Argentine's time at Manchester United, Roberto was not shy of taking to social media to slam both Amorim and the club.
The sibling agent found himself in the hottest of waters following United's Europa League final defeat to Spurs in May, lashing out after Garnacho was left on the bench in Bilbao.
The winger had started every knockout stage match in the club's run in the competition, including both legs of their semi-final triumph over Athletic Bilbao.
However, Amorim didn't introduce him until the closing stages, with United searching for an equaliser, which they never found.
After United were beaten 1-0, Roberto later took to social media to accuse Amorim of 'throwing him under the bus' in Bilbao.
'Working as no one else, Helping every round, coming from 2 goals last 2 finals,' he wrote on Instagram at the time. 'Just to be on the pitch 19 mins and get thrown under the bus. [Wow] hajjahhahaha.'
Roberto also courted controversy when accused of leaking team news to the media. He has denied that claim.
And as recently as September, when Garnacho returned to Old Trafford for the first time since leaving the club under a dark cloud for Chelsea in a deal worth £40million, the Argentine's brother told a United fan to 'go to the f***ing gym' in a social media spat.
Not one to stay quiet, that's for sure.
Alexander-Arnold's brother, best friend and agent
Brotherly love, you just can't beat it.
Anyone who knows Trent Alexander-Arnold on a more personal level will know that his two brothers are more than just siblings to him; they are his best friends, too. Both younger brother Marcell and eldest Tyler have been a part of his journey through professional football and they remain closer than ever to this day.
Not only that, though, but they also have an extra special interest in their brother's extraordinary career.
Tyler is a director at PLG, the agency that represents Alexander-Arnold, and facilitated his move from boyhood club Liverpool to Real Madrid, which caused quite the stir on Merseyside.
He also manages players such as Andy Robertson and Jordan Henderson, both of whom were team-mates of Trent during his nine-year spell in the Reds senior team.
The Madrid star has previously spoken about his close bond with his brothers, who have regularly been seen with Alexander-Arnold at finals and other big occasions, including his unveiling at the Bernabeu in the summer.
Speaking to The Players Tribune last year, he said: 'My brothers weren't just my brothers, they were my best friends.
'As I got a bit older, and I moved up through the Liverpool academy, Tyler and Marcel willingly sacrificed their own dreams for mine.
'I think maybe we all realised at a young age that being a professional footballer was more realistic for me. And my parents did, too. That's a hard thing for a young lad to understand.
'There were weekends when Mum couldn't take my brothers to their matches because I had to be at the academy at a certain time — and it was always them who made the sacrifice. To this day I'm so incredibly grateful to both of them.
'Every step I took, we took. Every cap I got, we got. Every experience I had, we had. That's how it works where I come from.'
Lionel Messi's agent father
When you have a child who is as special as Lionel Messi was, and still is, with the football at his feet, you want to make sure he is given the perfect platform to shine. His father, Jorge, made sure to make that happen.
Jorge Messi has acted as the great Argentine's representative in contract negotiations throughout his entire career, ever since he joined La Masia as the little boy with the world at his feet in 2000.
As reported by The Athletic, there was a big drama just 12 months after they arrived at Barcelona during Messi’s mid-teens, after a new general manager questioned why they were paying around £100,000 to a kid who was not yet playing competitive games.
Jorge contacted another Rosario native, Jorge Valdano, to discuss a move to Real Madrid. Then in 2005, Inter Milan offered to triple Messi's wages but ultimately Barcelona kept the Messi family happy with regular salary increases and it's claimed he replaced Ronaldinho as the team's best-paid player within three years of making his debut.
Jorge maintained a stern approach in negotiations all the way until Lionel's departure from Barcelona, though he didn't need to make many during Messi's career in its entirety, considering he spent 16 years in Catalonia.
However, in terms of transfers, he has been busier in recent seasons, holding frequent talks with PSG owner Nasser Al-Khelaifi before his move to the club in 2021. Lionel then joined Inter Miami in 2023, with the MLS side set to pay him between £38m and £47m annually.
Jorge has certainly made bank being the father and agent of arguably the greatest player to ever grace a football pitch. The Daily Star have previously reported that he has pocketed more than £75m in commission during his son's glittering career.
Yamal's youthful and outspoken dad
When Lamine Yamal first burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old lad who looked like he belonged in maths class rather than mixing it with the big boys, it wasn't just his age that made the headlines.
No, it was also the age of his father, too. Mounir Nasraoui is just 17 years older than his son and was only 32 years old when Yamal broke through as Barcelona's bright new star.
Since hitting the spotlight, Nasraoui has shown unconditional love for Lamine; he is his number one fan. Sometimes, that love and raw emotion have got him in a bit of a pickle.
In September, following the Ballon d'Or ceremony in which Ousmane Dembele beat out Yamal to football's most prestigious individual award, the winger's father boldly claimed his son is the 'best player in the world by far'.
Yamal, meanwhile, won the Kopa Trophy for Young Player of the Year in a turn of events dubbed 'very strange' by his father, Mounir Nasraoui.
As he walked by Spanish media following the ceremony, Nasraoui confidently claimed, 'next year, he'll be ours' before speaking to reporters afterwards. 'I wouldn't say it was theft but rather moral harm to a human being,' he said.
'Because I believe Lamine Yamal is the best player in the world. By far, by far. Not because he's my son, but because he's the best player in the world. He has no rival. He's Lamine Yamal. Something very strange happened here. Next year, he'll be the Spanish Ballon d'Or winner.'
In 2024, just one month after his son won Euro 2024 with Spain, Nasraoui was left in a serious condition and taken to the nearby Can Ruti hospital in Badalona in an ambulance, after being stabbed in a car park.
He has since made a full recovery and is reportedly engaged to 23-year-old Khristina, despite their relationship coming scrutiny in recent months due to their 12-year age gap.
Thiago Silva's wife launches series of social media tirades
If you want an example about how emotional investment from a family member can lead to sticky situations, look no further than Thiago Silva and his wife Belle.
Belle is her husband's biggest fan; she doesn't miss a single kick. The 38-year-old is in the stands for every single one of his games, and it is doubtful that she sits there with her lips sealed shut. It's fair to say she has never been one to stay quiet when she thinks her husband is hard done by.
Just last year, she made her feelings clear about the then-Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino, implying that he should be sacked in a social media post while Silva was still captain of the club.
In February 2024, after Chelsea lost 4-2 to Wolves at Stamford Bridge, she wrote: 'It's time for change. If you wait any longer it will be too late.'
That is just one of many tirades that Silva's biggest fan, and the mother of his two children, has been on.
However, ever since the family's move back to Brazil, with Silva playing for Fluminense, she has seemingly stopped tapping her thumbs on Twitter (now known as X) quite so much.
The Giggs brothers
While the feud between Ryan Giggs and his brother Rhodri is rather different to the other examples on this list, it's a dispute that was bigger than just the former Manchester United star's career - it ripped apart his whole family.
In 2011, it came to light that Ryan, who was in his 21st year as a professional at United, had been having an affair with his brother Rhodri's wife Natasha whilst he was married to his wife of four years, Stacey Cooke.
Natasha, who has two sons with Rhodri, even fell pregnant by Ryan and aborted his child just two weeks before her wedding to his brother in Las Vegas.
The pair first met in a nightclub in Manchester in March 2003, and Natasha spent the night with him while his then-pregnant fiancée Stacey, was at home.
Despite the fact that Natasha started dating Rhodri just two months later, the pair resumed their affair after a year, conducting illicit liaisons in hotel rooms and vacant properties she had access to through her job as an estate agent.
Members of Ryan's family cut ties with him when the news broke, his dad saying he was 'ashamed' of his son, while Natasha cashed in on the scandal and appeared a year later on Celebrity Big Brother.
While admitting he feels 'sorry' for his brother Ryan, last year Rhodri claimed he could 'bury' his brother with information he has on the back of Ryan going to court over assault allegations in 2022, which he was later cleared of.
He's since also explained how the pair's first confrontation went on that fateful day in 2011, when his whole world was turned upside down, but admitted that he'll still be there for his brother if he ever wants to reach out.
'Eventually he got the courage to meet me three or four weeks after,' Rhodri said. 'It was at a friend's house, he said it was about sex, it wasn't this, feeling sorry for himself basically and telling me how his contract was crap with Reebok, it was the s******t contract in the world, bearing in mind he's getting paid a lot just to wear trainers and that's the s******t contract. Well you f***ing signed it you d***.
'It was all like I'm going to get stick, get the f***ing violin out. That's him. I felt sorry for him, all the stuff that you've done and you're going on like some b****, just f***ing get away from me.
'He can ring me whenever he wants. I've moved on, I've got a new career working in schools. All the s*** that I've gone through in life, I've dealt with it on my own mostly.'