Sports stars and celebrities donÕt know when to stop scoring

Date Published: {J}

There are currently three English international footballers and a well-known British television stars who have something to hide when it comes to affairs of the nocturnal kind. But because they have all secured what are known as super-injunctions, we may never officially know who they are.

Of course a quick recce across the web will provide you with any number of clues – although the trick with the English footballers appears to be to find one who doesn’t fit the bill of a cheating husband as opposed to one who just might.

The only ones so far ruled out are John Terry, Ashley Cole, Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney – but only on the basis that all of them have had their dirty laundry aired in full view of the public already. Wayne is currently sulking on the bench, but what’s the bet he won’t be there for long.

As to the married TV star who slept with his ex-wife after he’d already remarried – and who is now being blackmailed by his former spouse – you can take your pick from almost anyone other than Graham Norton and Dale Winton. And that’s only because there’s women involved.

So what does all of this say about the moral standards of our rich and famous? Not a lot – but it does show that money may be able to buy you love, but it can’t guarantee you post-coital silence.

Take our mystery TV star who, like an old dog making his way back to the porch, fell back into his ex-wife’s arms when he presumably found that those faraway hills weren’t as green as he’d imagined.

But all the time it seems his original partner was just laying down a trap so that she could sell her story to one of the tabloids, making some more money and ruining her cheating ex-husband’s life in the one fell swoop.

And while divorce is rarely without rancour, this classy lady takes it to new depths, sleeping with her ex-husband and then trying to blackmail him so that his new relationship is destroyed.

There’s actually one defence for the footballers and it’s called Yorkie syndrome – because like the chocolate bar, they’re just big, rich and thick.

If you pay an under-educated semi-literate over a hundred grand a week and then make them ‘work’ (as in, kicking a football and drinking smoothies) for three hours a day, you shouldn’t be too surprised if they look for other ways to occupy their time.

There was a Manchester United Christmas party a few years ago, organised by that nuclear physicist Rio Ferdinand at which a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by one or more of the little Red Devils.

The fact was that Rio had hired a nightclub and a posse of strippers, and then told the wives and girlfriends that it was a lads-only night to which they were not welcome – so what did their partners think they were up to? Having a table quiz?

It’s been suggested that the reason England had such a disastrous World Cup was because so many of the team were on the point of being exposed by the tabloids as cheats. If only they’d devote half as much effort to scoring on the pitch as off it, they’d have waltzed their way into the final.

Of course they can argue that it’s actually nobody’s business whether they’re playing at home or away and in other circumstances they might be right.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.