Who Has the Most Own Goals in Football? The Record Explained

Here’s the short version if you’re in a hurry: when it comes to the most own goals in football, Richard Dunne holds the Premier League record, with 10 own goals during his time in the competition. It’s not a record anyone sets out to chase, and Premier League records and Opta’s historical data both list Dunne at the top. Below, we look at how that number came together, who else shows up on this rather unwanted list, and why even some of the game’s greatest defenders aren’t immune to it.

Most Own Goals in Football: Player With the Most Own Goals in History

The player with the most own goals in history spent his career mostly known for the opposite reputation — Dunne was a tough, reliable defender for clubs including Everton, Manchester City, and Aston Villa, and also holds a share of the Premier League’s most red cards record. His ten own goals came spread across nearly a decade, a mix of unlucky deflections and the kind of scrambled goalmouth moments that happen to even the most experienced defenders.

What makes the record notable isn’t just the total — it’s that Dunne actually started his Premier League career own-goal-free, making 60 Premier League appearances for Everton before his first one arrived. The rest accumulated gradually over the following years, which is part of why the record has stood for as long as it has: ten own goals across a long career is a very different thing from ten in a short one.

Own Goal Record: Who Else Shows Up on the List

Once you get past Dunne, the own goal record list gets genuinely surprising, because several of the names on it are considered among the best defenders the game has ever produced. Franco Baresi, widely regarded as one of the greatest centre-backs in football history and a six-time Serie A champion with AC Milan, is frequently listed among the defenders with notable own-goal totals, although historical figures like his can vary between statistical sources. That’s a useful reminder that own-goal totals don’t necessarily reflect a defender’s overall quality.

Jamie Carragher sits closer to Dunne with seven Premier League own goals, a figure confirmed by Opta’s records, including a memorably unfortunate pair against Manchester United in a single match back in 1999.

Riccardo Ferri, a long-serving Inter Milan defender, is another name that frequently appears in historical own-goal discussions. Sources differ on his exact career total, and given that own goals weren’t tracked as consistently in earlier decades, older records like his are worth treating with some caution.

If you’re curious how a single moment like a deflection or a mistimed clearance compares to other split-second football records, our piece on the fastest goal in football history covers a similarly odd corner of the game’s record books.

Andrés Escobar and the 1994 World Cup Own Goal

Not every own goal is just a footnote. One of the most widely remembered own-goal stories involves Andrés Escobar, the Colombian defender who deflected the ball into his own net during a 1994 World Cup group match against the United States. Colombia lost 2-1 and were eliminated from the tournament. Escobar was shot and killed in Medellín less than two weeks later, and his death has long been linked in public accounts to the fallout from that tournament, though the exact circumstances behind the killing have been described differently across sources over the years.

It’s an extreme and tragic outlier compared to everything else on this list, but it’s a reminder that for all the light-hearted “blooper reel” framing own goals usually get, the pressure behind a single moment on a football pitch can carry real consequences.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, most own goals in football conversations tend to circle back to the same handful of names. Richard Dunne’s ten own goals remain the official Premier League record, confirmed by the league’s own published statistics alongside Opta’s historical data. The wider question of who has the most own goals across all of football history is harder to answer with the same confidence, since record-keeping hasn’t been equally consistent across every league and era.

What’s genuinely interesting about this particular list is who’s on it — not journeymen or forgettable squad players, but genuine greats like Baresi and Carragher, illustrating that even elite defenders can occasionally end up on the wrong side of the scoreline.

If you’re working your way through more of football’s odder records and rules, our breakdown of penalty shootout rules covers another corner of the game where a single moment can define an entire match.