Mr X, Premier League soccer boss caught visiting brothel
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Mr X, soccer boss in a brothel: His name's all over the internet but British press can't identify manager in massage parlour
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.
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what's e deal about?
boss no need shiok one meh?
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130 pounds per hour???
girls made of gold huh?
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cannot go in to just chat chat with the gal to release some stress meh????
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Mystery man:
Look does the outline resemble? Wenger...
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rafael benitez...................liverpoo manager
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he over 60 leh.. still operational or not?
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20 managers. Who could it be? Wore a training kit to the brothel...
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benitez. reason? too much stressed.
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Originally posted by I-like-flings(m):
he over 60 leh.. still operational or not?
Maybe he only like to watch... Voyeur mah... -
Mark Huges - seeking pleasure after getting the sack.
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much ado over nothing.
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Tiger Woods?
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Originally posted by ztreyier:
Tiger Woods?
zzzz
for mi
i think is
Villa Manager -
I think it's Sir Alex Ferguson!
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to me, i tink its Grant.. haha
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Wenger the wanker!!!
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Originally posted by HeartHunter:
130 pounds per hour???
girls made of gold huh?
why not..
elite pple go elite brothel
his 130 pounds might equal to your $2.
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just now ESPN show, it was mentioned that the manager does not managed a northern club, so there you go, narrowing down to clubs from the south.
you can make your own speculation. cheers -
Yup, saw that too... So we can take out City, United, Bolton, Blackburn, Pool, Wigan, Everton, Sunderland, Burnley, Stoke and Hull City...
Birmingham City, Wolverhampton, Aston Villa... These are like in the middle so maybe...
Those in the South side are... Tottenham, West Ham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Fulham, Portsmouth...
Mystery man:
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Looks like Wenger loh!
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The silhouette isn't of the real person! It's just a mock up one...
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Is Peter Reid si boh? Ex Thai manager, maybe he missed the Thai prostitutes.. But he's an asst manager la.
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if the silhouette is the real guy, can't be rafa.... there's too much hair
