Privacy laws have prevented the press from
revealing the identity of the football manager who visited a
brothel
A married Premier League football manager has been
caught visiting a brothel - but the British Press cannot reveal his
identity on human rights grounds. The soccer boss, a family man
with children, was witnessed entering and leaving the building on a
shabby industrial estate where Thai prostitutes offer sex for £130
an hour.
He is said to have freely admitted that he knew it was a
brothel. Within hours of the story breaking in The Sun, football
fans' websites were flooded with speculation about his identity.
Many contributors accurately named him and his club.
Yet despite this placing of his name in the public domain in a
way easily accessible to millions, newspapers are effectively
barred from publishing it because of a creeping law of privacy laid
down by judges over the past five years.
MPs and lawyers protested yesterday that the rules of privacy
have become an intolerable burden on freedom of speech and are
winning Britain an international reputation for censorship and
suppression of information.
It has reached the point where the wealthy from abroad are
indulging in 'privacy shopping' to shield them from reporting in
their own countries.
Yesterday, The Sun published a story telling how the manager
spent more than an hour in the brothel, which advertises itself as
a massage parlour. He arrived dressed in training clothes featuring
his club logo.
Confronted by reporters outside the building and asked if he
knew it was a brothel, he said: 'Yes.' It was said to be his second
trip there following an hour-long visit in October. But if the Sun
or any other newspaper published his name, it could face the threat
of a hugely expensive privacy action in the courts.
This is despite the majority of the public finding the manager's
indulgence in vice immoral and offensive. In addition, a number of
deep public interest concerns are raised by the incident.
By visiting the brothel, he could have encouraged a number of
crimes or even have committed one himself. Brothels are in some
cases suspected of involvement in selling sex with under-age girls
and human trafficking.
Scene of disgrace: The brothel the Premier League
manager visited
Running a brothel remains a serious crime and The Sun
suggested that the manager could have opened up his club to the
risk of blackmail.
Privacy law has been built on the back of the 1998 Human Rights
Act, which gives British judges the power to make rulings according
to the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Under the current law, even reporting the fact that the manager
is in charge of one of the 20 Premier League teams puts a newspaper
in danger.
Some or all of the 20 managers could potentially launch a legal
class action claiming that narrowing down the individual involved
to a small group tainted all of them.
Mystery man: The identity of the Premier League
manager has been kept secret for legal reasons
It hardly seems a likely destination for a millionaire
football boss who wishes to while away an hour or so.
But yesterday a single-storey unit on an industrial estate
was revealed to be a brothel visited by the married manager of a
Premier League club.
He is alleged to have smiled when admitting knowing the building
was a brothel before speeding off in a car.
The manager, who is reputed to earn over £1million a year,
apparently made no attempt to hide his identity.
He is said to have previously been seen outside the parlour,
which uses Thai and other Far Eastern massage girls, in October
when he also spent more than an hour inside.
Ten minutes after he was confronted by journalists from The Sun,
his car returned with another driver at the wheel. The driver is
said to have 'rushed' into the building before coming out a short
while later.
Last night the manager was unavailable and a spokesman for his
football club declined to comment. Contacted by telephone, a
relative of the the manager also refused to comment, hanging up
when the allegations were put to her.
The Mail cannot give the location of the massage parlour since
it would help identify the football manager. It is marked 'Unit 1',
giving no clue to the nature of the entertainment within. Locals
said 'you would have to know it to find it'.
The prefabricated building is in a cul de sac beside a used car
dealer and off a busy road. Five CCTV cameras overlook the car park
and no doubt would have captured the instantly-recognisable face of
the manager as he arrived.
Yesterday a woman of South-East Asian appearance in her
mid-thirties answered the door and denied in broken English that
the manager had visited. 'We don't do sex here, just a massage
parlour,' she said.
A second woman of similar nationality, in her late 20s, in a
low-cut pink top displaying her cleavage, could be seen inside the
building.
According to The Sun, entry is secured via an intercom on the
white PVC front door. The foyer contains a washing machine and a
pile of white towels.
A steel-barred gate is said to guard further access to the
building. Once this is opened, a corridor leads to a room with
mirrored walls where a reporter was met by a girl in a maid's
uniform.
Services are said to have been offered at £70 for half-an-hour
and £100 for an hour. The Sun reported that the girl stripped to
her bra and knickers, at which point the reporter left.
One man who worked in a neighbouring building said: 'We know it
is a massage parlour. Two or three girls work there and we see men
going in regularly.
They stay for half-an-hour or an hour. The girls are always
pleasant when we see them and we have never had any problems.'
He claimed to have seen the Premiership manager visiting, once
clambering from a car with blacked-out windows and apparently
accompanied by a security guard.
The soccer boss is not the first to be linked to prostitutes. In
October 1987, the then Tottenham Hotspur manager David Pleat
resigned after claims - always denied by him - that he had been
cautioned for kerb crawling.
The latest revelations come at a time of increased concerns over
the trafficking of women from the Far East and Eastern Europe to
work as 'escorts' and in massage parlours - often against their
will.
The last major police and immigration operation against
trafficking three years ago raided 373 brothels and massage
parlours and resulted in more than 150 arrests.
