Footballer Ashley Cole had his marriage brought into question when an Essex hairdresser, followed by two other women, sold their stories to the tabloids. She claims that they slept together after a night out, a fact that Mr Cole had never denied.

Despite not contesting the story, Mr Cole is pursuing a no win no fee lawsuit against the Daily Mirror and the Sun. While he does not deny that there may be some truth in the stories published in the two papers, he says that their reporting of the incident was cruel and infringed his privacy.

He also argues that it unfairly affected his wife, Cheryl Cole and irreparably damaged their relationship.

Mr Cole is busy assembling a powerful team of three barristers who are approaching the case with an astonishing amount of energy and zeal. And Ashley Cole is not having to shell out a penny for this legal representation due to a no win no fee arrangement with his lawyers.

Ashley Cole is looking for £200,000 worth of damages from each paper, in regard to eight stories printed by The Mirror and one story which appeared in The Sun.

He says that his human rights have been violated, citing Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects “the right to respect for private and family life.”

His legal team contend that his rights under Articles Eight, override the right to free speech of the newspapers and the women involved.

The case is being heralded as a landmark case which will have major implications for the press and the publication of highly popular and scandolous ‘kiss and tell’ stories.

Graham Shear, Ashley Cole’s solicitor, says that while some of the points in the strories are “substantially untrue”, what this case is really about is “the tabloid business model, and having less kiss and tell.”

Media experts observing the case feel that a win for Ashley Cole could dramatically affect the way in which the media handles kiss and tell stories in the future.

“Victory for Ashley Cole would finish 'kiss and tell' celebrity stories for good,” says Professor Eric Barendt, Goodman Professor of Media Law at University College London. “If the [Naomi] Campbell case was a narrow win for the supermodel, this would be: footballers 6, the tabloids 0.”

British newspapers have long been dealers in sexual scandal, taking a rather different approach to the tabloids in Europe which have always treated marital infidelity as a private matter.

Ever since the application of European Law, Graham Shear has been at the forefront of representation for a number of famous faces wishing to keep their indiscretions out of the papers.

Shear has taken Ashley Cole’s case on with a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement which means if he loses, he gets nothing, but if he wins he may be able to feast on costs.

Cole's legal team, if it wins, are able to put in a bill for double their total costs (and his team of barristers are all-star, armed with high fees). In addition, the papers would, of course, be liable to pay damages to the footballer himself, as well as their own costs.