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The Sunday Herald, the Scottish newspaper in the middle of a controversy in the UK, has named a footballer accused of being linked to a privacy injunction by users of Twitter.

The Scottish newspaper revealed a picture of Ryan Giggs on its front cover today with a subhead that read “Everyone knows that this is the footballer accused of using the courts to keep allegations of a sexual affair secret. But we weren’t supposed to tell you that …”

The footballer at the heart of the controversy is alleged to have been involved in an affair with Imogen Thomas, the British TV star of the show Big Brother.

In the newspaper’s editorial, The Sunday Herald said “Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why? Because we believe it is unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse.

“Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order. The so-called superinjunction holds no legal force in Scotland where a separate court order is needed. We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.”

A high court in the United Kingdom had granted a search order against Twitter to try to find out who had named the prominent footballer as the alleged center of the controversy.