But the sprightly Houghton has also emerged, along with Willie Joe Padden, the Mayo GAA star, and Victor Costello, the former rugby international, at a photo-shoot at Croke Park to cheekily announce details of a link-up with Rui Costa, the former Portuguese playmaker, to flog us a load of apartments in Portugal and Budapest on behalf of a company called KenDar.

Last week details were given of yet another property development backed by an international golfer. Savills Hamilton Osborne King launched the re- development of Kilronan Castle in Co Roscommon. About 60 courtyard town houses by Hanly Homes are available priced from €299,000. The entire scheme is based around a Nick Faldo-designed golf course.

Faldo joins a plethora of golfers who have become involved in marketing property schemes in Ireland, including Darren Clarke, the Ryder Cup hero.

Brian O’Driscoll, Ireland’s adonis of the oval ball, has for his part done promotional work for the Seafield Golf scheme in Ballymoney, Co Wexford. Meanwhile, last April, it was revealed that he had taken ownership of a two-bedroom apartment in Dubai and is on the record as plugging the resort.

So why do sports stars rush to sell us property? Stewart Fogarty, a marketing expert with the AFA O’Meara agency, has one word for it — trust. “When it comes to investing on a large scale, particularly in property and particularly abroad in countries were people don’t feel so safe, developers need to present us with someone we can trust,” he says.

Fogarty says that when a pop or TV personality extolls the virtues of a product, we all realise straight away that they’re being paid to do it. “But for some odd reason, we don’t think the same thing when we see a sports star up there doing exactly the same thing.”

The experiences of Platinum Properties, marketeers of property in Bulgaria, proves this hypothesis. In 2004, the company’s name was mud after a developer legged it, leaving Irish buyers high and dry to the tune of more than €9m. The problem was not caused by Platinum, which stayed around to help out its disgruntled investors. But the headlines had already done the damage.

The following year, Platinum reacted by taking on Brent Pope, the affable rugby pundit and well-liked former All-Black, as its marketing manager. Since then sales have rocketed. The latest estimates are that Platinum has concluded €1 billion worth of Irish property deals in Bulgaria.

According to experts, sports stars by the nature of their business and backgrounds tend to drift towards property, while developers, with their almost universal love of sport, tend to drift towards sports stars.

The favoured port of call for investment advice among the Premier League’s soccer stars is Knightsbridge Asset Management, which has invested the earnings of several Irish soccer stars among its clients, including the cash of a younger Dave O’Leary, the former Republic of Ireland footballer.

Knightsbridge’s Chris Bate says: “By the nature of their careers, sports stars are pushed towards property. Most don’t achieve top earning potential until their mid-twenties and by their late-twenties their earnings are already going downhill. These days our clients are investing in commercial property like office blocks.

“Their substantial earning power allows soccer stars access to the sort of property investments not available to the average punter.”

So what do sports stars get out of it? According to Fogarty, there are generally three levels of involvement.

“On the first level, you lend your name to a scheme. The next level is to endorse the scheme and attend openings and exhibitions. The third is direct involvement, which actually involves working for the developer on maybe a half-dozen days a year.”

According to Fogarty, who has arranged such deals in the past, it is customary for a well-known sports star to be gifted an apartment in the scheme if he goes further than the first level of involvement.

“At the top end of involvement, the entry level is an apartment and then a fee of €50,000 to €100,000.

“The risk is if the scheme they’re associating with goes bad. Then they’re name is mud from then on. So they are in fact taking a large risk themselves with their own marketability.”

But do Ireland’s sports stars know what they’re talking about? “People like Roy Keane and Niall Quinn are examples of how savvy people are getting with property investment — but generally speaking? They know just about as much as you or me,” says Fogarty.

A selection of British soccer personalities launch the Village at the Radisson in Dublin on Feb 15 and at the Kingsley in Cork on Feb 17 and 18; Apartments at Kilronan Castle is selling through Savills Hamilton Osborne King, 01 618 1300

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