Egi Ramdani Sudjana

In those days, images of famous sporting people were largely seen as public property.

But as sport has developed into a global business, the importance of sports image rights as a marketing tool to promote and sell individual athletes and teams has grown into a huge industry.

David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, and now Gareth Bale have all realised the massive earnings potential of using their image to sell everything from underwear to football boots.

"Sportsmen and women have realised the potential of developing their image rights," says Nigel Currie of sports brand experts Brand Rapport. "If you are looking at a period of sustained fame, they can be a huge potential earner.

"Image rights are anything that can be directly attributable or linked to an individual personality.

"The most obvious one is a name. If your name is Gareth Bale, and your name is on a football shirt, you have an intellectual right to that."

Welshman Bale, 24, recently joined Real Madrid for £85m, is set to make millions via the image rights route, even though he has ceded 50% of these rights to the Spanish giants.