Britain's worst kept secret is out, but should we really care if it has nothing to do with football?

At last night's awards dinner for the League Managers Association there was plenty of love for Carlo Ancelotti.

Alex Ferguson paid tribute to the Italian for attending just a day after getting the sack from Chelsea as the Manchester United boss accepted his Manager of the Year award via a live video link, and that rightly prompted a round of applause from those in attendance.

However, poor old Carlo was not spared humiliation, as he was corralled into playing a small part in the evening's 'entertainment' which followed the handing out of awards.

The stooge on stage went around the room asking 11 different managers to each name the best player from the Premier League era in a certain position, before revealing he had somehow magically managed to have them all written down beforehand. Rather magnanimously, Ancelotti picked Petr Cech in goal. Save for a few curve balls (Mick McCarthy picked Kevin Foley, Phil Brown named Michael Turner and David Moyes went for David Weir), there were many of the normal names you would expect to hear on such a list.

The last boss was asked to pick a left winger, and he plumped for Ryan Giggs. Cue plenty of ironic cheers, something the veteran United midfielder has had to get used to over the past few weeks. Even before Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming mentioned Giggs as the footballer hiding behind an injunction against reports linking him with former Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas, everyone was saying it was him.

Even for those not talking about it on Twitter, fan forums or on e-mails, Sunday's chants from Blackpool fans at Old Trafford and the front page of a Scottish newspaper ensured even the most ardent luddites knew who it was seeking to gag the press.

As you can imagine, the newspapers are full of it this morning. Surprisingly The Sun and the Daily Star, usually the brashest of the tabloids, both play it fairly straight down the line, leaving The Independent to crow "Revealed: Britain's best known secret" while the Daily Mirror takes first prize for their front-page splash "Naming Private Ryan".

Of course, we should spare a thought for the real victim in all of this: Gary Neville. The former Red Devils captain is having his testimonial at Old Trafford this evening to commemorate his retirement. Not only will he have to deal with the hysteria surrounding David Beckham running out in a United shirt for the first time in eight years, but now the media furore over another of his former team-mates is going to overshadow his big moment.

Early Doors does not subscribe to the theory that if you earn your living in the public eye then you immediately waive any kind of right to a private life. Moral qualms aside, no laws have been broken. In a perfect world, no one would care about such matters which have nothing to do with them. Then again, in a perfect world there would be no extra-marital misdemeanours, train tickets would cost half as much and no one would ever have heard of Paddy McGuiness.

However, the fuss over the injunction being filed has only served to exacerbate the situation to the point where it is no longer a cheap tabloid gossip story but a matter of press freedom and privacy that could have much wider implications.

Still, from a football perspective, should we really care at all? A footballer philandering is hardly a new phenomenon. Players' status as role models has been rapidly eroding for quite some time, often as much for their actions on the pitch as off it.

The recent cases of Wayne Rooney and John Terry's alleged dalliances became football stories by dint of the effects they triggered. The prospect of the press revealing Rooney's straying could well have been a major factor in his insipid showing at the World Cup, while Terry's actions led to another England player ruling himself out of contention for a place on the plane to South Africa.

Yet Giggs, for all the stress he has been enduring in his private life, has had an exceptional season, an even better showing than when he won the PFA Player of the Year award two years ago. So what business is it of anyone's?

Giggs is one of the last players knocking around who turned pro before the start of the Premier League era, and as such was part of a time when they were more accessible, more human. Now with astronomical wages funded by ever-increasing ticket prices, the gap between footballer and fan is greater than ever.

Expectations on the moral standing of today's players are far lower. Just look at how the behaviour of Jack Wilshere is staunchly ignored in favour of casting him as England's big hope for the future. So far, nothing he has done in his life outside football has affected his career, so no one pays much attention.

But better has always been expected of Giggs, because of his longevity of his career and the high level of class he brought to the game. Now that has been irreparably damaged, and any mention of his name from now on will always bring his ill-fated legal fight to mind as much as his famous goal and shirt-twirling celebration against Arsenal, his personal awards or any of his 12 league titles.

All that is left for the rest of us to do is just enjoy watching the game and not project the status of idols on to the players. The Stranglers once sang that there are no more heroes any more. This whole mess proves that is certainly true in football.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I received once an envelope, when I was secretary-general, and in this envelope there was an amount of money. I couldn't refuse because he put it in my pocket. I came home here to FIFA and gave it to the finance director and he put this money on the account of the Swiss Bank Corporation at that time, and informed the guy, 'The money you gave to the secretary-general is in that bank,' and a few days later he reclaimed it. Then it was specifically known that please don't try to give money to somebody who's in FIFA." - FIFA chief Sepp Blatter reveals how he was once handed a bribe which was given back with a wagging finger and a 'naughty, naughty'. Wonder what sort of interest that account had for those few days.

FOREIGN VIEW: "I have thought about it a lot and I am convinced I must be true to myself. I don't think I should impose a limit on the chance of continuing to learn and grow. After five intense years a stage in my personal development has ended and I have to move on to a new one." - Atletico Madrid striker Sergio Aguero announces that he is finally ready to leave the Rojiblancos. Expect a summer saga involving Real Madrid, Chelsea and Tottenham to rumble on for much of the summer.

COMING UP: Our final clutch of Premier League videos for the season continues with our weekly Hot or Not round-up, plus the shortlist for Goal of the Season and the naming of our first players in the Team of the Season.

Our build-up to the Champions League final begins in earnest today, with all the latest news from England and Spain, a look at Alex Ferguson's previous clashes with Barcelona and Andy Mitten's latest blog on the Catalan giants.

As well as all that, there is some actual football on this evening too. Follow live coverage of Republic of Ireland v Northern Ireland in the Nations Cup at 19:45.

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Early Doors knows little of the world outside the Eurosport office, having been chained to its desk and forced to subsist on a thin gruel of UHT milk and cardboard. It cares little for football itself, preferring to focus on the childish histrionics and self-regarding largesse of those involved in the game. Its primary interests are training-ground bust-ups, Baby Bentleys and deluded chairmen. Like many Premier League players, Early Doors refers to itself only in the third person.

Early Doors / Eurosport