They’d arrived to such fanfare.
Indeed, such was the joy when Jamie Vardy signed in September this year for his new Italian team, Cremonese, that he and his wife Rebekah were mobbed by fans at Milan’s Linate airport.
But just weeks in to their grand Italian ‘fresh start’, everything has been tainted for the Vardys, I’m told, by a burglary on the couple’s new Lake Garda villa.
The crime is even more crushing for the couple because the happiness witnessed at the airport had been very much equal on both sides.
After all, as one source close to the pair told me this week, the Vardys had been looking forward to a more contented life away from Britain, after the difficulties of the infamous Wagatha Christie case, which saw Rebekah ‘bruised’ by the judge’s demand that she pay £1.4million of Coleen Rooney’s legal fees.
‘They knew the drama had to end, they wanted it to,’ says that source. ‘Italy was a new start.’
So determined were they to begin afresh, the Vardys decided that Jamie wouldn’t just jet in and out of Italy, where he had signed a year-long deal with the Serie A side, but that they would instead uproot their family and build a new life.
Just six weeks ago they moved into a luxurious villa in the beautiful town of Salo, overlooking Lake Garda in the Italian Alps, so Jamie could be close to the town of Cremona, where he plays and which is famous for making violins.
Former England striker Jamie Vardy and his wife Rebekah after he signed for Italian football club Cremonese
Instantly nicknamed Stradi-Vardy – a nod to honour both him and Cremona’s musical heritage – the couple’s welcome could not have been warmer.
But this week their Italian dream was shattered when their home was raided by burglars who seized around £80,000 of their belongings after breaking in through an open window while Jamie was playing in his team’s home game against Roma.
Robbers made off with jewellery, cash and other high value objects including a Patek Philippe watch.
Rebekah wasn’t there at the time, but a babysitter was. It’s thought the gang were watching for when the Vardys were not at home. Locals say that, thankfully, none of the couple’s five children was in the house.
One said: ‘The babysitter was inside, alone without any of the kids and she didn’t realise anything was happening, which the police do believe.
‘It’s a very large property so she was in another wing when it happened.’
A police insider confirms the woman is not a suspect.
Police sources say the burglary happened very fast and robbers knew what they were doing, and what they were looking for – after all, it isn’t often that one of the best-known footballers in Europe moves to a sleepy town like Salo.
Cremona, where Vardy’s new club is based, is famous for making violins
One restaurant owner there told the Daily Mail of his shock at the break in, saying: ‘It’s a very safe, quiet town. Burglaries seldom happen, for sure someone was following him and knew nobody would be in the house.’
Locals also believe the lavishness of the villa led to it attracting the burglars’ attention.
Friends say Rebekah was watching Jamie play at the time. I’m told she is ‘sickened’ and ‘in shock’.
‘It really has affected her,’ says a friend. ‘She and Jamie were looking forward to living under the radar more in Italy.
‘They had a bit of a “no drama” rule, they’ve had enough of it. They just wanted to get on with their lives.
‘It was their dream life, they decided to take the kids – apart from the oldest because she’s at university – and have the most amazing experience.
‘This is the last place they thought something like this would happen. You’ve got to wonder if they wish they had gone to Saudi Arabia now, or America, where they were so set on going.
‘But there’s no way this is going to stop Rebekah watching her husband play football. She tries to never miss a match – and won’t let burglars stop that.’
Vardy, who won the Premier League with Leicester City in 2016, in the stands at a Cremonese game with his wife and daughter
Because in typical unabashed Vardy style, sources close to them say that they will ‘make good’ of their heartache by featuring it on their forthcoming ITV fly-on-the-wall documentary which is out next year.
The three-part show will follow the couple and their children on their adventure to Italy.
Even this is threatened to be outshone by Rebekah’s nemesis Coleen Rooney, however.
The Rooneys have their own Disney+ show which is expected to air next year, too.
Both families have been at loggerheads since 2019 when Coleen accused Rebekah of leaking stories to a red top newspaper about her. Rebekah then began a libel claim against her fellow WAG which ended in a deliciously entertaining High Court battle back in 2022 that she sensationally lost.
It was costly for the Vardys – and could have led to the couple putting their villa in the luxurious Algarve resort of Quinta do Lago on the market for £9.7million in June.
‘The TV show will show them arriving in Italy and take viewers through the trials and tribulations of uprooting there,’ one source said.
‘But now they have this drama, which will of course give it a bit of oomph. While it has been an awful time for them, it has been so stressful and dreadful, it’s a bit of a gift, too.
‘It could be many more viewers watching their show, especially when Wayne and Coleen have theirs, so it’s going to be a bit of battle of the ratings. All eyes will be on the audience figures. Let’s just say that this robbery won’t harm the Vardys.’
For all this though, there are signs that the Vardys genuinely had tried to change their lives in Italy, with Rebekah in particular wanting a quieter life.
Gone are the set up paparazzi shots, the opulent nights out and photoshoots. In fact, sources in Italy say that the Vardys are ‘barely seen’.
There appears to have been no jet setting to the likes of Dubai or Thailand recently, either. Rebekah also currently has no press representation and posts on Instagram far less often.
When they do go out, they tend to go for cheap restaurants – in contrast to the expensive tastes Rebekah enjoyed during her life in Britain.
‘Vardy is practically a ghost in Cremona,’ said one local. ‘We would love to meet him, but apparently very few lucky ones have. After the inaugural press event this summer, it seems he disappeared into thin air.
‘He doesn’t hang out after training with other players and has not been spotted around town that much. He keeps to himself to himself and leads a very private life.’
One of the few places that Jamie and his brood – which includes Rebekah’s son Taylor, 15, and their three children Sofia, 11, Finley, eight, and Olivia, six – have been spotted is budget eatery La Sosta, which, according a waitress there, they frequent regularly.
Jamie has also been seen in a ‘very simple, no-frills pub’ called the Sax Club which serves British food, such as pizza, burgers, fries and is known for its beer.
In Salo itself, he isn’t seen either. A local trattoria owner says he has never seen Jamie or his family in town: ‘I’m open every single day and I know many people. I’ve been here for decades and I have never seen him or any member of his family walk across town or heard anyone who has met him.
‘I don’t think he comes here at all. He probably hangs out more in Cremona, where he plays.’
Former England striker Jamie signed a deal with Cremonese in August which is reportedly worth £860,000 per year – almost ten times less than his annual income at Leicester City where he won the Premier League in 2016.
Before he signed, there were rumours he would spend his final playing years in the Middle East even though Rebekah was ‘super keen’ for her husband to join David Beckham’s US side Inter Miami (while sources close to Beckham say that would ‘never have happened in a million years’).
She would even, some say, have been happy with Jamie moving to the star-studded Championship club Wrexham in the hope that she could buddy up with Blake Lively whose husband Ryan Reynolds is a co-owner.
There was also chatter about Jamie moving to Birmingham City which is owned in part by US superstar and former American footballer Tom Brady.
But once the Italian deal was signed, insiders say Rebekah was looking forward to the change of pace.
‘Rebekah had got her head around a move to Italy,’ says a friend of hers. ‘She thought it would be idyllic, she thought it would be calm. The idea of no big name WAGs, and no celebrities was just what she needed.
‘But the burglary has shattered all that. She thought living on Lake Garda would be a dream. It has, sadly, become the total opposite.’
As viewers of their reality show will, one imagines, soon find out.
