As it turned out, Arsene Wenger was a tad hasty last week when he offered his congratulations to his former AS Monaco striker George Weah.
The former AC Milan footballer turned politician has been contesting the presidential election in his West African homeland of Liberia and had been the favourite to win the election.
But Wenger's congratulations, as the Arsenal manager fielded a question at a press conference, were a bit premature.
As things stand, Weah is still in the race, but now goes into a run-off against the current vice-president Joseph Boakai. He is the deputy to outgoing president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the woman who led Liberia following the end of a long and brutal civil war.
According to the BBC, Weah leads the first round of elections with 39%, while Boakai is further back on 29%, with a run-off between the two now expected in early November.
For those of us from the Gazzetta Football Italia generation, Weah's exploits in the mid-90s with Milan live long in the memory, with the forward's performances earning him the FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon d'Or in 1995, building on an already impressive reputation from his time at Paris Saint Germain and Wenger's Monaco before that.
Politics in his homeland has been his main undertaking since the mid-2000s when he ran for the Liberian presidency in 2005 - unsuccessfully.
But should he win in 2017, he will be far from the first former sportsperson to become involved in high level politics or been elected to high office itself.
The man who won the FIFA World Player of the Year the year before Weah has also gone down the politics route with former Brazil international Romario serving as a senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2015 and had been vocal on issues that saw sport and politics cross paths, namely transparency in the build up to the Rio Olympics in 2016.
American filmmaker Spike Lee (L) talks to former football player and politician Romario during an event in a bar in Brasilia, Brazil, on April 25, 2012. Lee is in Brazil to shoot the documentary 'Go Brazil Go'. Photo: ANDRE DUSEK/AGENCIA ESTADO/AE
In Ukraine, Vitali Klitschko - one half of boxing's acclaimed Klitschko brothers- might not hold power on a national scale but has been mayor of the capital Kiev since 2014, serving a on a four year term. Generally, his stance is pro-EU in a country now divided between the western bloc and an Eastern Russian-centric bloc. Similarly another noted boxer involved in politics is Philippines' Manny Pacquiao who is a senator, having previously been elected to that country's House of Representatives.
When it comes to mayors in the Klitschko mould, former NBA point guard Kevin Johnson was Mayor of Sacramento, the state capital of California, for eight years until last December. He was the first African American to be elected to the position.
Ukrainian politician, Mayor of Kiev, and former professional boxer Vitali Klitschko during the meeting with Ukrainian community in Etobicoke, Toronto, Canada, on 22 June 2017. (Photo by Anatoliy Cherkasov/NurPhoto)
On a bigger scale in that same state, bodybuilder and weightlifter extraordinaire turned Terminator actor Arnold Schwarznegger became the governator of California, also for two terms until 2011, while former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura served in the same role in Minnesota.
In Argentina, meanwhile, ex-Formula 1 driver Carlos Reutmann later became a governor in his province of Santa Fe and remains involved in Argentine politics as a senator.
While Pacquiao remains active as a boxer, Imran Khan had left his long and distinguished test cricket career behind by the time he became involved in Pakistani politics from the mid-90s, and is an opposition figure is part of the National Assembly.
And, of course, here at home, Jack Lynch's two periods as a Taoiseach - the first from the 1960s and then from the late'70s - were preceded by an impressive sporting career as an amateur, winning a combined six All Irelands for Cork as a dual player, with five of those in hurling.
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