On a weeknight in west London groups of young women crowd outside exclusive clubs known to be popular with footballers. Those not lucky enough to know a promoter rely on big hair and small dresses for entry.
In threes or fours — if one goes home with someone her friends won’t be left alone — those not on the guest list form a separate queue across from the entrance and wait. The attractive ones are ushered in.
At venues in Manchester, Preston, Ascot, Leeds, Essex, the drill is the same.
“You can tell who the footballers are, even if they’re not well-known players,” says Danielle Mason, 32, a glamour model who worked in club promotion for seven years. “They dress in a certain way, have tables filled with bottles of vodka and champagne and are surrounded by girls.”
Ms Mason, 32, said that because players are so used to girls “offering themselves on a plate” normal signals of consent do not kick in. “They think if she’s there, then she’s up for it. Girls get their tits out at the table and you’ll see them disappear with a couple of players. If anyone else did this in clubs they’d get kicked out but footballers get away with murder.”
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Footballers are often seen “leaving out the back” with a girl, often two or three at a time, according to one promoter. He said: “There’s this assumption that because a girl has got in for free and had all her drinks bought then she’s fair game. For some it justifies sexual assault.”
Inside Libertine nightclub in Mayfair, formerly China Whites, two 18-year-olds celebrate getting past the bouncer. Have they come here to meet a footballer? “Not entirely, but it’s definitely one of the reasons we chose this club,” said one.
Her friend added: “If one of them wanted to take me home, I wouldn’t think twice. Most have girlfriends though, so it would have to be a hotel.”
Dan Caren, assistant general manager of the club, said there had been a promoter who tried to get under-age girls into clubs to meet players. “Some guys want younger girls, not really young, but under-age,” he said. “We got wind of what was going on and he’s pretty much been barred from working in Mayfair. Some clubs have private rooms [where players take girls for sex]. We’re not one of those,” he said.
The case of five players accused of subjecting a 15-year-old girl to a 24-hour gang rape caused outrage in 2006 when they were cleared on the ground that she consented. Ten years after the scandal, Terrell Forbes, a 23-year-old Grimsby player at the time, said the incident “really messed [him] up”.
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“I was young and when players are out together things can get really reckless. Girls throw themselves at you. Sex isn’t normal sex. It’s threesomes, foursomes,” he said. “Some of these girls that go after footballers are really messed up in the head. They wake up feeling ashamed or whatever and then suddenly it’s assault. But then they still brag about getting off with a footballer, like it’s a status thing.”
Clarke Carlisle, the retired England player and former chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said that in such an environment, finding a partner you respect was very difficult.
“There are lads who are married and settled down with a woman and everyone in the game knows that woman has been with ten, 15 other footballers. It’s very incestuous,” he said.
Although some women “genuinely fall” for footballers, most seek players out for the fame, glamour and money, Ms Mason said. “I know one girl who was seeing a Premiership star and this girl was going to sell a story so he paid her off. She bought a £30,000 BMW.”
However, things are changing, according to some promoters. Wannabe WAGs who see it as a “meal ticket” are distancing themselves from trashy kiss-and-tells. Footballers now want to party with US pop stars and top models, not page 3 girls.
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In Manchester, the queue at Panacea, a club that is popular with players from the city’s two big teams, begins to grow two hours before the doors open.
One footballer’s wife, said: “I will be talking to other wives knowing that their husbands have slept with someone else. I just hope they’re not thinking the same about me.”