Chelsea legend Frank Lampard admits he was unable to stop his competitive instincts from kicking in after he tested at a genius-level 150 IQ during his playing days at Chelsea.
Unless he’s pulling a Carol Smillie on us, Lampard’s IQ would be enough to qualify him to join Mensa.
It behoves us to say that IQ testing has a deeply problematic history and that the validity of the concept – and the way it is measured – has been repeatedly called into question over the decades. But you know, we’re a football website, so let’s have a bit of fun with it for a moment, eh?
Chelsea legend Frank Lampard confirms genius-level 150 IQ claim – thanks to John Terry
Lampard, who ranked at No.3 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best Premier League midfielders of all time, explained to The Sun: “I was tested at Chelsea in the aftermath of John Terry getting kicked in the head in the Carabao Cup final.
“Our doctor, who was Brian English at the time, made us do IQ tests to get us all a base-level IQ so we could be registered again if you had a concussion or a head injury. I just breezed it.”
We were ready to lay into Lampard for not quite having the intelligence to know not to talk about his IQ, but in fairness he was asked about it directly, and humbly added: “Other people seem more interested in it than me.”
However, he was still a footballer, and so Lampard’s competitive streak inevitably came out. He went on: “I am quite proud of it. My score of 150 just beat my wife, Christine, which was the best thing about it. She was just below me.
“I don’t know the exact numbers but we were around the same. But I think she’s smarter than me…at least it feels that way in the house.”
“It was a strange test. I’d never done one before. For whatever reason, I came out on top of it. That was my one and only IQ test. I retired after taking one, just in case it was a false test.”
Lampard took over at Coventry in November and has helped lift the side from 17th in the Championship to sitting in the play-off places, in fifth, with 11 games still to play.
The former England midfielder replaced the long-serving Mark Robins, who had taken Coventry from League Two to going within a play-off final penalty shootout of reaching the Premier League in 2023, only to lose to Luton Town.
