Off the pitch and in the public eye: Footballers sex lives make for brilliant reading ('Sporting Chic' for The Sunday Guardian, October 10 2010)

It’s inevitable. You hit the big time, these days before you’re even old enough to vote, you’re a football hero. Your name is on the back of every jersey sold and your face endorses every product or brand conceivable. So much money you don’t know what to do with it. Besides buy a ridiculous house, fill it with the craziest gadgets and make an appearance on MTV Cribs. And then you’re caught with your pants down. Literally.

Because what they didn’t tell you was – that with all the fame, sporting glory and money – also came the constant invasion, paparazzi and tabloids stalking your every move. Anything you touch is golden, which means; anything you do wrong is platinum.  One misstep, mistakes ordinary men and women make each day, and it’s a headline in every daily rag and legitimate newspaper across the world. Think Tiger Woods and a list of women far too long to mention, Rebecca Loos and David Beckham, Ashley Cole and his hairdresser or Peter Crouch and his escort.  Men cheat. Women cheat. It happens. Except when you’re playing in the number 10 shirt for your country, your business is everybody’s business. Without judging and I mean, morals aside – who are we to comment on what footballers do after hours? You’re not my elected representative to Parliament; you’re not even a new-age Yoga guru I look up to. But when your dalliances post-game time start affecting game time, goal scoring and my team… Then, suddenly it’s fair game.

Why does this seem to happen so often with English footballers, more certainly then with any other country? Part of the reason is that England is obsessed with gossip and scandal. It’s got to be one of the reasons why the most widely read papers throughout the United Kingdom are tabloids like the Sun and the Daily Mirror? This obsession with celebrity and their failings, ensures that the eagle-eye lens of every paparazzi photographer and every tabloid editor are looking for that incriminating picture of a drunk footballer tumbling out of a night club at 4 am with a not-his-WAG hanging off his arm.

In the last year alone, almost half of the English football teams starting XI have had a press story threaten their family and football lives. Ashley Cole. John Terry. Peter Crouch. Steven Gerrard. . Wayne Rooney. Explains their so-called World Cup campaign? Fabio Capello dropped John Terry from England captaincy when the story of his dalliance with teammate Wayne Bridge’s ex-wife broke. Wayne Bridge, of course, was the first to say, he would never play with John Terry ever again.

Under English law, a person who suspects that he is about to be defamed can obtain a super-injunction to block such stories coming out. Currently, three English footballers have been successfully granted super-injunctions, much to the chagrin of tabloids that were hoping to break stories, ruin families and weaken football teams. Wayne Rooney is a classic example. Coupled with stories of his preference for aging prostitutes (she was a grandmother) when he was sixteen, the newest rumors didn’t surprise anybody – least of all his wife. However, it’s the public spectacles that these affairs become that have the worst effect on families and team management alike. Since the story broke, Rooney’s form has been terrible. He was dropped for the biggest fixture in his football calendar – an away game against Everton (the team he has supported since he was a tot). Since then, his form hasn’t recovered and Manchester United hasn’t had a great game in a few weeks. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – Rooney’s lack of form only means United’s lack of form. The Arsenal fan in me is pleased. Clearly, we’re not really fussed with what footballers get up to off the pitch. Let’s leave that to their WAGS. But when they can’t keep personal life drama separate from a game-winning performance, that’s when it becomes our problem too.