Croatian model Ivana Knoll has received dozens of marriage proposals and has sexy messages from some of the World Cup stars in Qatar, MailOnline can reveal.
The 26-year-old model, who has been garnering a staggering 200,000 Instagram followers each day, said she was shocked at the way some fans thought she was an ‘easy woman.’
She said some of the messages she received through her Instagram account had been invitations to ‘meet’ from footballers playing in the World Cup.
But Ivana said: ‘I am only having fun with everybody. I suppose people like me because I am good looking. I am not interested in meeting with anybody here. My intention is to make people smile, that is all.
‘The fans I meet everywhere love me. But when I go to matches now, my friends won’t sit with me and move away to other seats because of the cameras.’
She admitted she had been concerned about upsetting Qatari sensitivities with her skimpy outfits in her national team red and white colours and feared being banned from stadiums.
But she arrived at the Lusail stadium last night for the match with Argentina, four hours before kick-off to mix with fans and pose for pictures.
Her Instagram following has been growing at around 200,000-a-day and she has more than 2.7 million followers.
Croatia’s attempts to make a second successive final were undone by a Lionel Messi penalty and a brace by Julian Alvarez.
There had been rumours that she would be banned from attending the semi-final clash after stadium security previously tried to stop her from posing for photographs with fans.
It was previously claimed by some people in Qatar that people were only photographing Knoll because of the way they disapproved of her outfit, instead of seeing their snaps as a sign of adoration for the scantily-dressed 30-year-old.
Qatar’s usual modesty laws urges women to cover their shoulders, whilst Knoll’s shoulders were exposed in Lusail.
The 5’11 star amassed over 2.6 million fans on Instagram as a consequence of her exploits in Qatar, garnering fans across the world for her stance and unwavering support of Luka Modric’s Croatia.
Croatia emerged second from Group F, behind surprise package Morocco but ahead of Belgium and Canada, to make it to the knockout stages.
They won two penalty shootouts to progress to the semi-finals for a second World Cup in succession. The 2018 runners-up narrowly edged out Japan 3-1 in a shootout in the round-of-16, before defeating tournament favourites Brazil 4-2 in spot-kicks at the end of Friday’s quarter-final.
However, this time around, they fell at the semi-final stage to a Messi-inspired Argentina.
Though she kissed goodbye to her country’s hopes of winning the World Cup, there is still one match where she can go and support the nation, when they play the losers of Wednesday’s second semi-final between France and Morocco in Saturday’s third-place play-off.
Culled from All Football
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