The Italian (Nut) Job - Atletico Madrid Star Reviled After Dreadful Social Media Leaks

Matteo Ruggeri In Shame After Awful Messages Leaked On X

More and more often, social media is becoming the downfall of professional football players, and early today, Atletico Madrid's Matteo Ruggeri became the latest entry on that ever-growing list.

The Italian’s offence? The Italian left-back DM’d the same prostitute on multiple occasions, asked her to record herself saying specific racially demeaning and blasphemous phrases, as well as insults directed at God, and got … frisky when she eventually sent them over. He allegedly paid her €150 each time.

🇮🇹🤮 Huge scandal from Matteo Ruggeri coming in this morning as a woman exposes him for DMs on Instagram.

Matteo Ruggeri would pay this woman €150 for each *s*xual* audio message she sends him.

He made requests for blasphemous phrases, racist statements, and insults directed… pic.twitter.com/thPHfrA0g6

— Atletico Universe (@atletiuniverse) June 29, 2026

Disgraced

On one occasion, Ruggeri sent her a message saying, ‘Tell me that you insult Black people too and that you are racist,' while in other messages, he even went as far as ordering her to enunciate these hateful phrases in a specific way, saying on one occasion, “Say it with a hard D – say it really clearly enunciated like that.”

These messages, leaked earlier today from the unnamed woman’s Instagram account, quickly hit the mainstream and went viral for all the wrong reasons.

While many of the leaks are simple screenshots of their messages in Italian, as well as the distinctive voice note message, some leaks feature audio and visual evidence of the messages, some of which have since been translated by the morbidly curious.

Along with these translations, which we won’t write down here, there was also photo evidence of the player depositing cash in the woman's bank account on multiple occasions, further rendering the case against him as airtight.

Another report from a different woman made a few months prior to this latest incident also claims that Ruggeri has a history of messaging underage girls.

The 23-year-old, who was brought to Spain from Atalanta last summer for £14.8 million, was a key part in the Atletico side that reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, playing 47 times across all competitions, but it now seems as if any future in Spain, or more broadly as a professional footballer, has well and truly gone up in flames.

Atletico Madrid pages across social media are calling for his immediate release from the club, while football followers the world over are ensuring that

We have seen countless players hit with negative allegations over the years, with Achraf Hakimi and Mason Greenwood the highest-profile recent examples, but never has the evidence been so overwhelmingly comprehensive as it is in Ruggeri’s case.

It isn’t the first time that Ruggeri has been embroiled in controversy either. Back when he was still playing at a youth level, he was punched in the face by current Empoli striker Marco Nasti while on duty for the Italy U21 side. While it remains unclear what was said to this day, it now serves as an indicator of the despicable acts Ruggeri would go on to commit.

His unforgivable behaviour and the shameless way in which he went about acquiring these “autoerotic” messages mean that any self-respecting football club, and indeed human being, will steer clear of the disgraced Italian for the rest of his career and, to an extent, his life.

There is never a normal day in Spanish football, but this is next level.