A few days before Ulrika Jonsson was beaten up by her boyfriend in a Paris pub, one British broadsheet let us know exactly what she was. The wealthy, fun-loving Swede would hereby be known as Television Totty.
This new breed of television presenter is invariably blonde, wears skimpy clothes and a smile as wide as O'Connell Bridge. She has very little to recommend her other than her physical appearance. It is all that a successful career in TV requires these days, it was implied.
They could equally have been explaining the phenomenon of a new breed of soccer player. The elite of this movement - let's call them Soccer Studs - have little to recommend themselves except finely-toned legs and sexy smiles. They may be intellectually bankrupt but they have bulging wallets. Oh. And they can knock a leather ball around a grassy pitch quite skilfully, too.
Aston Villa's Stan Collymore epitomises the SS brigade. He and Ulrika were a natural liaison. Former weather girl turned TV celebrity meets soccer player turned Soccer Stud. They fall in love. It ends in tears.
It's not the first time and it won't be the last. Now that soccer players are sexy, attending film premieres instead of snooker halls in their time off, it is inevitable that the worlds of showbiz and soccer collide.
The list of pop stars, models and TV presenters who have scored with a Soccer Stud is rapidly expanding.
The former Rolling Stone wife and model, Mandy Smith, had a fling with the former Everton player, Pat van der Hawe. Not to be outdone, her sister, Nicola Smith, pledged shortlived devotion to the controversial Manchester United player, Teddy Sheringham. She is currently on the cover of Hello! to whom she has told all for a small(ish) fee.
There is Posh Spice and Manchester United's David Beckham, there was Baby Spice and striker Robbie Fowler. Solo artist Louise is planning to marry Liverpool's Jamie Redknapp. The former presenter on The Word, Danni Behr, meanwhile, dumped Manchester United's Ryan Giggs for Spurs player Les Ferdinand.
THERE is a perfectly simple explanation for this outbreak of love in the locker room, according to Ellis Cashmore, author of Making Sense of Sport. "The changes we have seen over the past 10 years have elevated footballers into icons. The proliferation of footballers on TV, in magazines and on the catwalk has put them into a category akin to movie stars and that is going to attract celebrity women," he says.
Premiership footballers have a higher profile since English clubs injected a continental chic into proceedings by purchasing foreign players. Satellite channels with their wall-to-wall soccer coverage have also added to the Soccer Studs legend. Once upon a time all we saw was Match of the Day. Now we have football morning, noon and night.
The Irish International player, Niall Quinn, remembers the old days when soccer players got married in their teens to their childhood sweethearts and any indiscretions were kept under wraps. He is also well placed to comment on the lifestyle of his contemporary colleagues.
"I am from the old school. I spent my afternoons off in the bookies, or the pub, or the snooker hall. With the advent of agents and massive salaries after training, players want to buy flash clothes and expensive cars," he says.
Women are impressed by that, he says. Particularly those also in the public eye and with a similar amount of money to burn. Not all soccer celebrity relationships are doomed he says, as long as the footballer doesn't get carried away.
"Jamie Redknapp and David Beckham are sensible guys, for example, but to be honest, Ulrika and Stan was always going to be a recipe for disaster," he says.
Eamon Dunphy cites Euro 96, when the Sun offered £10,000 to any women who kissed and told about their liaisons with a footballer, as an indication of how much more than sportsmen soccer players had become. "The game in England has changed greatly. The lads are earning so much money that they are simply out of control. Any of them that have a bit of character are glamourised so that they sell things," he says.
He gives the example of the Liverpool goalkeeper, David James, who was fined £20,000 by his manager for taking a day off to attend a modelling assignment. His day in front of the camera earned him £80,000.
THE measly salaries and low profile of National League players here mean they have not yet made the lucrative transition into soccer studhood. There is a distinct lack of models, singers and television totty lined up outside the grounds of Shelbourne and St Pats'.
Definitely not TV Totty but billed on occasions as Ireland's answer to The Big Break- fast's Denise Van Outen, RTE's Bianca Luykx can understand why celebrities are stepping out with soccer players.
"Part of the reason must be that they are both in the public eye and dealing with a lot of similar pressures from the media," says the 2TV Breakfast Show presenter. "Everyone wants someone they can relate to and soccer stars are so much in the limelight that they experience almost exactly what these women do."
One showbiz celebrity who has been known to date a soccer star or three is Sporty Spice, Melanie Chisholm. Things came to a head, however, when Spurs defender Sol Campbell became over-amorous with his protestations of lurve.
Sporty interrupted one television interview, saying, "Could I please take this opportunity to tell Sol Campbell to stop sending me flowers. I'm not interested."
Sensible girl.
