Tech tormentors stole player’s wife’s identify and launched bogus sex site with fake photos and videos leaving her too embarrassed to go to matches in case fans had seen it
A WAG has told how she was too embarrassed to go to her footballer hubby’s matches after geeks set up a deepfake porn site in her name.
The tech tormentors stole her photos and used them to create bogus sex snaps and videos. They then set up a porn website in her name and plastered the fake images all over it.
The woman was so shame-faced she stopped going to games in case she was targeted by fans who had seen it. Her footballing husband was ‘really upset’, she said.
She spoke for the first time about her ordeal to sports psychologists studying what it is like to be a WAG. Experts were so shocked at some of the experiences suffered by players’ wives and girlfriends they called for football clubs to offer the partners’ counselling.
As they opened up to researchers the women told how they were forced to combat vicious social media trolling, love rivals flinging themselves at their fellas and deepfake porn attacks.
The study found WAGs do not think they get enough credit from clubs or fans for the role they play keeping players on the straight and narrow.
Seven ‘incredible women’ spoke about the role they play in their husbands’ sporting successes and the impact it has on family life.
One said she was horrified to discover strangers had opened an adult website in her name without her consent using deepfake images and videos. They were left too scared to go to matches in case fans had seen it.
She said strangers had opened the adult site in her name without her consent and packed it with fake images and videos.
“It made me feel so uncomfortable I did not want to go to the games with people thinking they have seen videos of me doing God knows what,” she said. “It was not nice for him either. I was really upset about it.”
The women – aged 23 to 34 and including partners of Premier League stars – opened up to sports psychologists at Leeds Beckett University about the sacrifices they have made for their husbands’ careers and the mental toughness required.
Five couples have had children together and all have been in relationships from between four and 16 years.
The WAGs described their frustration at having their social lives and relationships disrupted by other women constantly trying to pinch their footballing fellas.
One said: “I’m stood there like, ‘the wife is here’. I know girls who sleep with players and then take their watches or ask for a pay-out so they don’t tell their wives.”
Another said: “I had been sent a picture of a back of someone’s head kissing a girl and they said, ‘have you seen what he’s been doing?’ I showed him. It wasn’t him. But I have learnt people will go so far out of their way to stir the pot.”
The women complained of the pressure they felt to look good in the public eye.
Some received death threats while others faced online attacks over their appearance.
One said: “You do lose yourself. You see all the other wives and girlfriends, they’re having work done and you’re like, ‘oh, do I need to?’ But I think as I’ve gotten older I’m like, ‘who am I trying to impress?’
“Being a woman is hard but there’s just an added pressure of being a partner of a player 100%.”
One told how a nanny ‘robbed us’ and ‘took everything’ including her ‘engagement ring, my handbags, all my shoes’. I’d never have anybody working in my home now,” she added.
Some told of their loneliness supporting partners through injury or lack of form. One said her husband began supping a bottle of red wine a day and gambling while out injured.
Most agreed other WAGs ‘become your family’ – but some said others formed cliques within clubs which did not acknowledge how important partners were.
The study, published in the journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise & Health, found being a WAG could be an ‘invasive force that could threaten or harm their identity and self-esteem’ and suggested clubs should consider funding counselling.