It's the oldest trick in the News of the World's book. Eight years after investigations editor Mazher Mahmood first donned his flowing white robe, it's hard to imagine how anyone could still be taken in by the so-called fake sheikh. So how a man rarely out of the pages of the red-tops could have so enthusiastically embraced an invitation to Dubai from a mysterious Arab Sheikh is frankly baffling.
Invited to Dubai last week to discuss coaching work at a fictional football academy, England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson was duped into revealing that he will quit his job if England wins the World Cup and making some indiscrete comments about England players as he "downed bottle after bottle of Dom Perignon".
In previous hits, the Countess of Wessex was forced to step down from running her PR firm R-JH after Mahmood exposed her for abusing her royal connections, and an investigation into London's Burning star John Alford led to the actor being convicted of supplying drugs.
After swallowing a slice of humble pie yesterday, the England manager is likely to survive unscathed. But the News of the World's expose does beg the question of why anyone, let alone a man who has been bitten before by the tabloid press, should fall for the fake sheikh scam.
So is it Mahmood's supreme powers of persuasion, or just the lure of a night quaffing champagne in a posh hotel? Its highly amusing for the readers and highly effective as a method. It sells newspapers but is it fair? Is it bad news for England's World Cup bid? And who will be next on the fake sheikh's list?
