Football Scandal Disclosure

02 February 2010, filed under Non Disclosure

The recent case of premiership footballer Garry Flitcroft shows the law of breach of confidence in practice.

The married footballer had affairs with two women, whom he seduced and wanted to keep this information out of the public eye. He therefore sought the renewal of an injunction against the Sunday People from publishing the information. An injunction had been granted last April, but this had recently run out.

Originally the court had held that the information concerning the footballer’s sex life was confidential and so should be protected from disclosure. However, the newspaper argued that this was contrary to the journalist’s right to freedom of expression and the public’s right to be informed about public figures who act in a socially or morally objectionable fashion. As the footballer used the press and magazines to maintain his celebrity status, he could expect his private life to some extent to be in the public domain.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the paper’s arguments and this month overruled the earlier decision and refused to renew the injunction. Lord Woolf stated that people who are public figures and role models should by their position be subject to a certain amount of scrutiny of their actions. As the footballer’s wife already knew about the affairs, the interest in protecting her from the information being disclosed in public was minimal when weighed against the public interest in hearing about the matter and the interest in preserving the press’s freedom of speech. It was also suggested that the women were not bound by a particular duty of confidence to the footballer as they were not married to him.

Although in this case, the footballer’s privacy was not protected, the case highlights the difficulties that can arise where confidential information is processed and that a careful measuring exercise should always be carried out before such information is disclosed.