In a tangled case that has implications for privacy laws and the traditional methods by which tabloids do business, British model and reality television contestant Imogen Thomas was yesterday accused of trying to blackmail a Premier League footballer for up to £100,000. Thomas was in court, backed by the daily tabloid The Sun, trying to have a gag order lifted so that she could name in print the married footballer with whom she had an affair from September to December of 2010. The same judge who had issued the initial injunction said during yesterday’s hearing he would not lift the order because evidence seemed to strongly suggest the possibility that Thomas was blackmailing the footballer. He stopped short of calling her a cold-hearted money vampire, but not much. In the end, his ruling was so harsh that legal observers wonder if it signals the end of one of the most traditional practices of the tabloid press—outing cheaters. At the heart of the ruling is whether the right to privacy, as guaranteed by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, is outweighed by article 10, which guarantees freedom of expression. Yesterday the judge made it clear that he thought the naming of cheaters had no social value, and he pointed out that Sun lawyers had “not even argued that publication would serve the public interest.” The decision has the nation’s philandering footballers—and one unknown wandering penis in particular—cheering. But we think the celebration will be short lived. Why? Because as long as the man who was riding in Imogen Thomas’s dinghy goes unnamed, every married player in the Premiership has to live under suspicion. We don’tmean from the public or the tabloids—we mean from their wives. A few months of that unpleasantness and the next petition to the high court to name the anonymous footballer will come from the other players, just so they can say to their wives, “See? Wasn’t me.”