There’s a fake sheikh waiting out there for all of us. Have you met yours yet?

The pretty girl claimed to represent a company selling shaving stuff and was offering Dallaglio a massively agreeable sponsorship deal. Dallaglio was flattered and buttered and trowelled into wild indiscretion, claiming that he had been a drug dealer and that he had gone on a celebratory drugs binge with members of the Lions. (Sorry to bring this up again, Lol, but I don’t think there’s a statute of limitation for idiocy.)

Like Eriksson, Dallaglio saw himself as the victim. He said that he had never been a drugs dealer or a drugs user, but he had pretended to have been both to please the girl and because he was drunk. I’m not a drug dealer, just a drunken liar. Oh, that’s all right then.

Well, it wasn’t entirely all right, because the RFU fined him £15,000 for bringing rugby into disrepute, plus £10,000 costs. He was cleared of charges of taking recreational drugs at the same hearing in which the late George Carman, QC, gave a bravura scourging to the press in general and the News of the World in particular.

Dallaglio lost the England captaincy, too, but he rose above it and played a crucial role in England’s World Cup victory in 2003. He was immense.

All this is a tribute to Dallaglio. He showed that a man can be a fool, but that he can be many other things as well, consecutively or even contemporaneously. The foolishness of an individual is never the whole story. That may be considered good news for all of us.

The two stings, Eriksson’s and Dallaglio’s, are strikingly similar. Basically, the undercover reporter took the sucker up to a high place, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and then said: “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” The tempter being, of course, the earthly representative of Money.

Now it is significant that in the story of the tempter in St Matthew’s Gospel, Christ does not actually yield to the tempter. This demonstrates an amazing fact: that it is not compulsory to yield to temptation. The tempted actually has some choice in the matter.

The fact that neither Dallaglio nor Eriksson said: “Get thee behind me, sheikh,” or “Get thee behind me, pretty girl,” (open to misunderstanding, I admit) does not mean that they lacked all choice in the matter. Smokers dying of lung cancer did not have to fall to the lure of cigarette advertisements and Formula One glamour. They had a choice, just as the cheating husband or wife had a choice.

But what is the true meaning of the fake sheikh? My colleague, Matt Dickinson, very properly noted in these pages that it was a great pity that the energy and financial resources of a massive newspaper were used not to chase crooked agents and football’s eternal bungs controversy, but instead to make Eriksson look like an eejit.

A pity indeed, but the more frivolous story sells more newspapers at much less trouble and expense. With a bungs story, you must deal with liars and cheats seeking to cover themselves. Eriksson delivered himself bound, naked and willing to the tempter. It is always much easier when the victim himself is on your side . . . and that was the case with both Dallaglio and Eriksson.

The fake sheikh has become something more than a tabloid device. With the successful entrapment of Eriksson, he has become, like the man who paints the Forth Bridge, a national archetype, the man whose job it is to demonstrate the endless greed, folly and vanity of the world. He tells us that the great, the famous, the high achievers, are also fools. And, we like to think, greater fools than us.

Perhaps, in fact, it was only their greed and their folly and their vanity that allowed them to become captain of the England rugby union team or head coach of the England football team. Perhaps they are not better than us at all; perhaps they are, in fact, a good deal worse. Inspiring thought!

The fact is that these people have other things than folly in their natures. But back then, for Dallaglio, and right now for Eriksson, it was, or is, hard to bring them to mind. It is hard to look beyond folly when demonstrated on this epic scale. And so the fake sheikh will continue to walk with the famous: Mephistopheles in white gown and flowing head-cloth, offering his victims all that their hearts can desire. All he wants in return is their soul.

It profiteth not a man to sell his soul for the whole world. But for Aston Villa? For shaving foam? These days it seems that Mephistopheles is operating in a buyer’s market. And even at the end there is no anguish, no contrition. Neither Eriksson nor Dallaglio has claimed to have seen Christ’s blood streaming in the firmament, as doomed, damned Faustus did.

Rather, they say they were tricked. Tricked into standing before the world as they really are: vain, greedy and foolish. Had they not been all three, Mephistopheles would have had to pack up his head-cloth and go home disappointed.

But Dallaglio has since showed us that there is more to him than greed, vanity and folly; a very great deal more. He has led a sporting life of stern and inspiring effort and achievement, and as a result he is back in the England squad. Now it is Eriksson’s turn to remake himself; let us wish him well. And as we do so, perhaps we should ask ourselves what our own fake sheikh would offer us.

Which of us is immune to the combination of flattery and money? What would have you or me cooing, fawning, accepting £900 champagne, and in return casually offering louche indiscretions and minor betrayals of trust? But perhaps it is best not to ask that question. If we do, we might see that we are no better than the Dallaglio of 1999, the Eriksson of last week.

And if we ask ourselves the sheikh question a second time, there is another matter even less easy to deal with. For perhaps we have already met our fake sheikh. And perhaps we failed to recognise him.

And perhaps we have already accepted what he offered, without ever realising that what he offered was worth nothing compared with what he asked for. How much is your soul worth? And mine?