The World

I must admit that I am surprised that John Terry has been forced to resign as England’s soccer captain for having an extra-marital affair with the former girlfriend of an ex-teammate. I can see that Terry’s wife has reason to object. But once the England management go down this path, they may find they have very few players of sufficient moral stature to aspire to the captaincy. The newly-appointed captain, Rio Ferdinand, has also had his sex life featured in lurid newspaper stories (and videos) – and has served a suspension for missing a drugs test. What’s the big difference, other than the passage of time - and the fact that Terry is married?

My hunch that Terry’s sin is fairly common was re-enforced by reading the papers on my flight to Mexico. It was the “News of The World” which was once nicknamed “the news of the screws”. But even the august Times had no shortage of adultery stories. There was the Terry tale. And there was a “news in brief” recording that “Four Wisconsin women involved in glueing a cheating husband’s penis to his stomach in a revenge plot were each given a year’s probation.” (So arguably Terry got off quite lightly?)

Next to the Wisconsin story was a report on the travails of the South African president Jacob Zuma, who has just fathered his twentieth child. Despite having three wives and a fiance, Zuma’s latest was conceived with yet another woman. I saw Zuma questioned about his polygamy at Davos and he faced down his critics without embarrassment. But this latest episode has actually forced him to apologise. So what are we to conclude? Polygamy good, adultery bad? Nineteen children fine; twenty children way over the top?

Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, is quoted as saying – “We believe President Zuma needs sex addiction therapy, as was recommended for Tiger Woods…” This strikes me as a ludicrous attempt to medicalise behaviour that may be reprehensible – but is also, frankly, how rich and powerful men have behaved for centuries. Should all those Turkish sultans with their harems also have been sent for sex addiction therapy?

Still, not everybody is taking the high moral ground or donning a white coat in response to stories of straying men. In yet another infidelity story in the Friday edition of The Times, it was revealed that Avram Grant, the manager of Portsmouth football club (and once John Terry’s boss, when he ran Chelsea), had visited a Thai “massage parlour” on an industrial estate near Portsmouth. (Obviously a high-class establishment.) Grant’s Israeli wife, Tzofit, has not been studying the script for the wronged wives of straying footballers. She was quoted as telling a radio station – “If he has gone to a brothel it is no one’s business. He’s the Portsmouth manager and it’s a tough job. He needs a massage not from one women but two. Morning and night…If he had a good time there as well, that’s cool.”

For some reason Mrs Grant’s comments reminds me of Philip Roth’s reaction to the Monica Lewinsky affair. It was to suggest that somebody drape a large banner over the Clinton White House, bearing the slogan – “A human being lives here.”