The Times:
The curious case of Stephen Ireland took another twist yesterday with the discovery of a website on which the Manchester City midfield player, who admitted last week to lying that his grandmother had died to excuse himself from international duty, claims not to like the sport that could make him a multimillionaire.
Ireland had been urged to see a psychologist by Sven-Göran Eriksson, the City manager, who criticised the player's "stupidity" for lying about the reasons for his withdrawal from the Ireland squad before their European Championship qualifying match away to the Czech Republic a week ago.
The deceit was uncovered when both his grandmothers declared themselves alive and well, and the 21-year-old issued a lengthy apology in a statement on Friday, saying that he had lied to be with his girlfriend, Jessica, after she had had a miscarriage.
There is considerable sympathy at City and at the Football Association of Ireland over the player's circumstances, but there is also concern about his behaviour in lying and in failing to return for training in Manchester after the truth emerged. Eriksson spoke to him at length on Monday, when the player returned to the club, and advised him to speak to a psychologist. This promises to be an interesting exercise to judge from Ireland's home page on the Bebo website, which was circulated on the internet yesterday.
On the website, which allows users to interact with each other and to share photographs as well as their musings on life, Ireland, who calls himself "Daddy Dick", says that "football is s***" and asks "why did I get stuck doin [sic] it?". The tone appears to be more flippant than serious, but, given that he earns more than £10,000 a week and is widely regarded as one of the most promising youngsters in the Barclays Premier League, it is a comment that is unlikely to do much for his reputation.