On Feb 12th, the News of the World published a story claiming they'd seen evidence of 2 unnamed footballers using a mobile phone as a sex toy, along with a 'dance music DJ'. This was followed up by similar allegations in the NOTW's stable-mate The Sun.

Neither paper tabloid (let's not flatter it with a diminutive of the word 'newspaper') named names, but the details they did publish, along with the doctored photo they published, seemed designed to lead the story down a particular path once it got into the pathetic turbo-charged rumour-fuelling arena of the internet.

It took people all of several nanoseconds to work out exactly who their allegations were about, because the doctored photo wasn't doctored very much, and it turned out that the original was very clearly a photo of Ashley Cole and the DJ concerned. One of them has his arm draped over the other's shoulder, which clearly marks them as gay or bisexual.

As if that conclusion wasn't pathetic enough, lots of internet commentators have taken the fact that the rags published that particular picture as proof of something.

Hold on a moment folks, the tabloid believed that Ash and the DJ were involved, so they got hold of a photo of them and doctored it. So what does the photo prove beyond the fact that the tabloid was (not too-)subtlely and scurrilously implicating those 2 people? Nothing, that's what it proves.

Let's make one thing clear: these rags are not averse to fabrication. This kind of story sells papers and that's all they care about. Of course, they don't always do the actual fabrication themselves. Sometimes someone else does it in order to try to make money out of the tabloids. But that doesn't detract (much) from the tabloid's responsibilities in the matter.

A couple of examples just to ram the point home: there was that film supposedly showing Princess Diana with James Hewitt (which the Sun, the NOTW's stable-mate, later admitted to have been a hoax), and there was the Alan Davies "Celebrity Q+A" column for which they didn't even bother to try to get in touch with him and which we exposed right here on Arseweb Newsreel (read it for more tabloid-bashing fun). Hey, well I never, the Alan Davies one was the News Of The World again. Sometimes I rue the day my parents gave me the same forename as that Murdoch chap.

Anyway, back to the story at hand.

Cole has filed claims against News Group Newspapers (Sun, NOTW, etc) for harassment, breach of privacy, libel, and breach of privacy. And in law, he can do that even though he wasn't named in any of the stories. The DJ is said to be bringing action as well. Some of the legal niceties are explained in an article in The Times.

Arsene Wenger says that he doesn't believe that Ashley will lose any focus as a result of this new legal action. Wenger can probably empathise better than most, having been the subject of even more outrageous stories soon after he joined Arsenal, stories that still surface in opposition chants.

"He wants to clear his name because he feels there have been some wrong rumours, and I can understand that," says Le Boss. "Nobody likes to read these sorts of rumours in the newspapers about himself. But unfortunately we are in a job where sometimes you have to face that, and you have to show mental strength."

"I feel that he is focussed on his job, on doing well and recovering quickly. I do not believe that privately it is a problem, but maybe he has decided that because he is going to be married soon, and he wants to go into something like that showing he cannot accept any insinuation on his private life."

"In my experience he has always shown mental strength when he is under pressure. He has never shown any weaknesses when he was in the public eye for negative reasons sometimes. When there have been things that might have distracted him, he has always shown remarkable focus on the game."

Wenger's probably right, and it's hard to see how the legal action will do any more harm than all the innuendo and gossip is doing already. As Cole's lawyer Graham Shear says, it is a disgrace that Cole should have to deal with the "insinuation and innuendo" ahead of a crucial phase of both his playing career with the World Cup ahead, and his impending wedding. Actually it'd be a disgrace at any time.

Good luck Ashley.