KEY POINTS:
As England's Hilton Four found out recently, celebrity, however minor or fleeting, can be a dangerous beast.
One minute you're streaking away for an intercept try against the All Blacks, the next your world has been Topsyed upside down by unflattering public revelations and potentially criminal accusations.
Whether
enjoying a quiet post-match spit-roast with mates, or choosing between an overweight, balding 55-year-old man and a stunning young brunette with an unquenchable thirst for fame and questionable morals for your personal assistant, the world of the high-profile sports star is full of pitfalls.
The more famous you get, the more likely you'll find your moral failings splashed all over the scandal sheets.
If the press don't get you first, an opportunistic member of the public surely will.
To paraphrase the catchphrase from classic old cop show Hill Street Blues, there are plenty of reasons to be careful out there.
The kiss & tell
It doesn't pay to get involved in extra-curricular activities if you are a married sports star. Just ask Ashley Cole. The Chelsea and England defender was portrayed as the ultimate love rat for cheating on popstar wife Cheryl. Having already taken a battering after leaving Arsenal to get a slice of rival Chelsea's Russian lucre, Cole's reputation hit rock bottom when 22-year-old blond Aimee Walton also decided to chase the cash herself, selling the story of her one-night stand with the footballer to a tabloid.
Walton revealed that Cole slapped her bottom so hard his platinum wedding ring left a mark. He later paused midway through intercourse to vomit. Every inch a consummate Premier League pro, he resumed shagging.
She also offered this somewhat painful overall assessment of his performance: "He knew exactly what he was doing and was pretty good, despite not being very big."
Ouch.
Cole joins a long list of top footballers to see their brief private liaisons become matters of long-term public interest.
David Beckham and John Terry have aroused attention, and it's nearly impossible to pick up an English tabloid without being regaled by tales from one of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo's recent conquests.
The honey pot
When you're the sort of person to whom good things just seem to happen, there might not be anything overly unusual in a pair of blond 25-year-old models randomly inviting you for a threesome. But if you're an internationally-famous sportsman, it would probably pay to ponder just how images of yourself poncing around in a Playboy G-string while being slapped on the bottom with a four-foot inflatable dildo (described as a "googly" in the News of the World) might look on the back page of tomorrow's paper.
Shane Warne doesn't need to imagine it. But having already established a reputation as a serial philanderer, it's doubtful the 2006 News of the World sting did Warne's public standing any harm - and given that he took 7-99 for Hampshire the next day, it sure didn't hurt his form.
Others, such as Mark Todd, Lawrence Dallaglio and more recently motorsport boss Max Mosley, haven't emerged from honeypot stings quite so unscathed.
The drunken stagger
Tana Umaga found out in 1999 just how far the notion of what constitutes news can be stretched. On a night out in Christchurch after a victory over the Springboks, Umaga was a spotted by an opportunist with a video camera weaving his way back to his hotel across Cathedral Square. Jason Parker, the man with the camera, handed the footage to TV3, who decided Umaga's lack of balance was of national interest. The real news was to follow, however, when it was revealed that Parker was in fact Paul Anthony Grey, a convicted child sex offender and fraudster.
Grainy images of Umaga late at night in Christchurch surfaced again after the 2006 Super 14 final when the former All Blacks captain was captured on the Jolly Poacher pub's CCTV disciplining teammate Chris Masoe with a handbag.
The uber-con
It's hard to have much sympathy for those who can't spot anything suspicious about a roomful of prostitutes dressed in concentration camp-garb - particularly when, like Max Mosley, your dad was the head of a fascist political group who had Adolf Hitler as a guest at his wedding. But some stings are tougher to pick, as then England coach Sven Goran-Eriksson discovered.
The Swede's romantic escapades made him a tabloid mark from day one but his ultimate downfall had nothing to do with Nancy, Ulrika or even sexy secretary Faria "Ferrari" Alam.
Eriksson's biggest blunder came when he accepted an all expenses-paid trip to Dubai to meet a billionaire Arab Sheikh, who turned out to be undercover tabloid reporter Mazher Mahmood. Whilst cruising on yachts and dining at seven-star restaurants, Eriksson admitted he would walk out on England for £5 million, blamed Wayne Rooney's temper on the fact that he came from a poor family and bragged he could temp David Beckham back to England from Real Madrid.
Getting what you paid for
"Wayne didn't turn me on at all - he was ugly," 37-year-old prostitute Gina McCarrick told a tabloid newspaper when asked about about her most famous client, soccer superstar Wayne Rooney. Rooney was just 16 when he began visiting a Liverpool brothel staffed by McCarrick and a 48-year-old rubber suit-wearing gran known as the Auld Slapper.
Rooney, who was so guileless he apparently signed autographs in the brothel's reception room, later said he regretted mistakes made when he was young and stupid. Mistakes, presumably, like being horribly tight-fisted.
"I thought I might get a big tip," McCarrick said. "I didn't though. He even waited for his £5 change. And so did his two mates. No tip or nothing. The cheek of them, these millionaires."
Rooney had to cough up in the end though, when fiancee Coleen McLoughlin learned of his nocturnal habits.
"Ms McLoughlin reportedly discarded her $25,000 engagement ring at the Formby Point Nature Reserve near the couple's luxury home," the BBC reported, sparking a rush of metal-detector wielding souvenir hunters to descend on the reserve.
Two's a party, three's a lawsuit
What seems like consensual group sex at four in the morning with a few shandies under the belt has a nasty habit of turning into alleged rape by the time the sun comes up over the yard arm.
Just ask the Energiser Bunny and his mates.
Rape is clearly no laughing matter and no shortage of sports stars deservedly find themselves in the docks. But the motives of the complainants are not always as pure as the driven cricket ball. The best example of this came during Leicester City's pre-season training camp in 2004 when star striker Paul Dickov, England international Frank Sinclair and Irish international Keith Gillespie spent a week in Spanish jail after being accused of a brutal sex attack on three African-born German tourists.
Charges against the trio were eventually dropped when the "victims" were outed as prostitutes who accepted $100,000 for selling their story to a British Sunday newspaper.
Although cleared, the stigma of the accusations stuck with the players. Dickov, who was painted as the ringleader, is still sniggeringly referred to in some circles as Paul Dickout.
Batting for the other team
It pays to keep your mouth shut. A decent rule of thumb is, when engaging the services of a male prostitute, don't brag about your fame, how many gold medals you've won or how matey you are with the British royal family. Unless, of course, you really want to be facing curly questions from Paul Holmes. Even z-listers who hail from the other side of the planet will be gobbled up by the British tabloid machine.
The whack and snap
Claims by Kiwis stand-off Benji Marshall that a recent late-night attack on him at the Saphire nightclub was staged have been discredited by the Sydney media. In a story in the Daily Telegraph, the anonymous snapper who took a photo of the fracas swore on his parents' grave he didn't know Marshall's attacker. But Marshall's suspicions raise a somewhat sinister point. Even if he was the victim of a drunken thug, several media outlets parted with four-figure sums for the photos. How long until staged attacks become a reality?
