The 'Wagatha Christie' trial: the wives of soccer players Rooney and Vardy air their rivalry in a British court

In the hands of the late American writer Tom Wolfe, the author of

, the lawsuit between Coleen Rooney (36 years old) and Rebekah Vardy (40 years old) could be the perfect story to portray an era.

Infidelities, betrayals between friends, desire for notoriety, display of luxury and, as a backdrop, the pernicious effect of the Instagram social network on the world of celebrities.

(the trial of Wagatha Christie), have baptized the British tabloids.

WAG

(Wives And Girlfriends) is the acronym used by the media to refer to that particular microcosm in which the wives and girlfriends of soccer players live.

Agatha Christie is the world-famous British mystery writer, whose characters Hercule Poirot or Mrs. Marple discovered the murderer through observation of details, instinct and fine deduction.

It is the joke that the British press brings with the tricks used on Instagram by the wife of the former captain of the England team and legendary Manchester United player, Coleen, to expose his rival, Rebekah.

Someone had been leaking the stories he posted on his private account for years.

“After a long time trying to find out who it could be, I had a suspicion, for various reasons,” Coleen wrote in her now famous “I Accuse” from October 2019. “To confirm it, I had an idea.

I blocked all my Instagram followers except one account.

She then began posting unsubstantiated false stories: a rumor about gender selection techniques in Mexico, her possible return to television, or even the flooding of the basement of her new house.

"I've taken screenshots, and saved them, of all those stories,

and clearly show that a person saw them.

It was... Rebekah Vardy's account."

The ellipses are yours, to increase the tension.

More information

Wife war in English football due to tabloid leaks

Last week the trial began at the High Court of Justice in London.

The decision is in the hands of Judge Karen Steyn, 51, with immense legal prestige acquired over the years in which she has judged arms trafficking to Saudi Arabia, the treatment of Guantánamo Bay prisoners or accusations of labor abuse against the current Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel.

Coleen accused Rebekah of being the source of a particularly painful leak: the moment her husband, Wayne Rooney, was caught driving drunk by police with a woman in September 2017. “I was in a particularly vulnerable position. .

I didn't know if my marriage was going to go ahead or not," the woman explained from the stand last week.

She had decided to go to her parents' house for a while.

And this is where the story takes a devilish turn.

In October, she decided to post a photo of her children in pajamas on her public Instagram account.

In her private account she put the same photo, but together with her children she added her husband.

"I felt comfortable posting a picture of Wayne on my private account, but I didn't want it to go public, because of the difficulties we were going through then," Coleen justified.

told the story and speculated about it.

"It hurt me especially," he explained in court, "because I felt that someone I had trusted was betraying me during a very difficult time in my life."

Rebekah 'The Cruel'

For a story like this to work in the media, there has to be a bad guy or a bad guy.

The public must be divided by force and choose a team.

While Wayne Rooney has accompanied his wife every day of the trial, and has listened silently and impassively to a crossroads of knives from which he has inevitably taken more than a scratch, he had to ask himself what the man who still holds the record for top scorer of the

Premier League (the English football league), instead of enjoying a pint of beer in the local

.

Jamie Vardy, Rebekah's husband and Leicester player, has been unable to leave the competition.

Rebekah Vardy arrives in court on May 16.

REUTERS/Hannah McKayHANNAH MCKAY (REUTERS)

Those present in the room have known the exchange of WhatsApp messages between Rebekah and her agent, Caroline Watt, in which the latter acknowledged being the author of the leak to

The

“It was not someone she trusted [as

Coleen herself had said in her

It was me”, and she would add a smile emoticon.

The meaning of that emoticon can be key to deciding whether the evidence is incriminating or just circumstantial.

Rebekah Vardy, in response, has limited herself to explaining that at that time she bathed the children, and that she did not pay attention to her agent's confession.

Paradoxically, the lawsuit for defamation has been filed by Vardy, who is claiming three million euros, and everything suggests that the shotgun has burst in the butt.

The first week has been a trial of his personality, his dark maneuvers and, to the delight of a proud and pretentious tabloid press, his lack of culture.

He has had to explain again how much he regrets publicly comparing the penis of singer Peter Andre, with whom he had a brief affair, with a

a very narrow type of sausage, "which barely lasted five minutes."

The commotion has caused Andre's outrage: "It would be a scandal if a man said something like that about a woman," he has bellowed on his Instagram account, after boasting that his "acorn" is actually a "Oak".

Vardy used unappealable popular wisdom to explain his difficult battle against the ex-girlfriend: “It's like arguing with a pigeon.

You know you're right, but you also know that, inevitably, you're going to be shit on yourself, ”he admitted.

Wayne Rooney will take the stand this week to recount his conversation in the locker room with his teammate Jamie, during Euro 2016, in which he wanted to warn him of the problems his wife was causing the team with his decision to publish a column in the

The media have dissected the wardrobe of the two rivals during the first week of the trial.

Coleen has opted for Zara.

She was fine with a jacket for 80 euros or a print dress for just 40, but all complemented with Chanel accessories or Gucci shoes that added several thousand euros more to the bill.

Vardy played it safe in a Givenchy suit jacket.

920,000 followers (approximately) on Instagram for Coleen, compared to just over 400,000 for Rebekah.

Those are the weapons of mass destruction, before those that pale Wayne Rooney's 208 goals in the Premier League, or his 53 in international competitions.

It is simply another league.