The French are at it again! They‘ve got form for this sort of thing you know - Francois Mitterand, Jacques Chirac, Rene from Allo Allo, rumours that Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are both carrying on escapades outside of the marital bed and now Monsieur Wenger‘s is added to that roll of Gallic dishonour. The Sun - that great bastion of English morality (except of course when exposing a 16 year old Sam Fox’s boobs to the nation back in 1983 which under the Sex Offences Act 2004 would now be deemed pornographic images involving a minor) has decided on our behalf that Wenger’s extra marital affairs are indeed something we should all hear about as a matter of public interest. While it is undoubted that such sordid details certainly do interest certain sections of the general public, whether they are in the public’s interest is another matter altogether.

Buoyed by its recent scoops of footballing infidelity, such as the John Terry, Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney sagas, the Murdoch press would put forward in their defence the argument that if a person puts themselves forward as a public figure then they are by such logic fair game for the scrutiny and invasion of privacy that follows. Fair enough you might say, however what’s good for the goose certainly should be every bit as good for the gander. Therefore it must equally be in the public’s interest to scrutinise any issues of fidelity regarding the proprietors of the parent company of those publications who are the front runners in the moral crusade against the supposedly decadent footballing world, especially so when their newspapers claim that their backing are ‘wot won it!’ in all of the last 8 UK general elections. Former News of The World editor Derek Jameson once described Murdoch’s background as Scottish Presbyterian and that Murdoch was rather prudish by nature, hence his initial opposition to the introduction of the Page Three pin up to the Sun Newspaper back in 1970. However if the rumours of Wenger’s extra-marital affairs are found to be true, he would find common ground with Mr Murdoch in being a high profile older gentlemen showing a willingness to exploit the opportunity to cheat on his spouse and indulge in physical coupling with younger ladies he would under normal circumstances never get near.

Rupert Murdoch, aged 79, is himself is currently wed to 42 year old Wendi Deng after Rupert’s separation from Anna Murdoch, whom he was married to for 31 years. The spin from the Murdoch Press was that this relationship occurred after the break up of his marriage, Anna Murdoch however argues differently claiming in a 2001 interview with the Independent Newspaper that Rupert had indeed conducted an extra-marital affair with Wendi Deng, the result of which had ended his marriage with Anna. Thirteen years Murdoch‘s junior, Anna been working within Murdoch’s News Empire since the age of 18 and while married to Rupert had worked her way up to the board of News Corp. She alleges that she had been forced off the board after her divorce from Murdoch in 1998 claiming ‘I wasn't given a choice. I was told (to resign)’. The treatment of his ex-wife can be seen as all the more a kick in the teeth bearing in mind the risk to her own life she faced in the saga relating to the kidnap and murder of Murial McKay, the wife of an executive of Murdoch‘s media group in 1969. The perpetrators of McKay’s murder had mistakenly believed that she was Rupert’s wife Anna.

According to a Wall Street Journal article in 2000, the background of the incumbent Mrs Rupert Murdoch is also as equally interesting as Mr Murdoch’s. Wendi Deng was born in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou, the daughter of the director of a machinery factory. In 1987 at the age of 19 she had met an American couple, husband Jake who had been building a factory in Xuzhou and his wife Joyce who worked as a private tutor who had taught Miss Deng to speak English. The following year the couple sponsored her application for a US student visa and allowed her to share a bunk bed with their five-year-old daughter in their marital home. It was during this time that the future Mrs Murdoch had started an affair with Jake Cherry, who later married her after divorcing Joyce. However the marriage had ended abruptly when Wendi had left Cherry for a younger man, by which time she had acquired a US Green Card for residency in the states.

While the Murdoch press busies itself with the infidelities of football stars and their scandal ridden female hangers on, the likelihood of finding out about any such goings on within the Murdoch household through the Sun or News of the Screws would be absolute zero. Outside of the mainstream media however there are innuendos galore concerning an alleged affair between Wendi Deng-Murdoch and MySpace founder Chris De Wolfe. The social networking site is now part of Murdoch’s News Corporation and Wendi is now working as ‘Chief of Strategy’ for the website. It goes without saying that there may be absolutely no grain of truth behind the alleged affair between Deng and De Wolfe - very much like a large proportion of the Sun‘s ‘Greatest Hits’ back catalogue of Scoops, as one Sir Reginald Dwight would only be too eager to testify to.

Back in 1987 the Kevin MacKenzie headed Sun Newspaper printed the unfounded allegations that Pop Star and former Watford chairman Elton John had been fraternizing with under age rent boys, followed by the also fabricated story that the pop star had removed the voice boxes of his guard dogs to stop them barking at night once Elton serve a writ for deformation against The Sun for the former allegation. Unrepentant MacKenzie retorted ‘I think The Sun should have its million quid back. It hasn't damaged him at all, has it? Libel can only have a value if there has been some kind of damage, right? Where is the damage? Where? There's nothing wrong with him. So no, I don't feel bad about him, not at all’.

The insensitivity of The Sun in pursuing headlines with no public interest value has never been restricted to the rich and famous either. An unknown member of the public who had just undergone a heart transplant operation, had been denounced as a "love rat" through the pages of The Sun for leaving his wife fifteen years earlier. This is also compounded by the fact that at the time this story run the man's recovery was still in the balance. And also, no self respecting football fan whatever their allegiance should ever forget or forgive the Sun’s coverage of the Hillsborough disaster which made the unsubstantiated claim that Liverpool fans attacked the emergency services trying to save lives while pick pocketing and urinating on the bodies of the dead.

It must also be remembered that Murdoch has form for infidelity outside the sphere of marriage, particularly with regard to citizenship and political allegiances. In 1969 Rupert Murdoch acquired The Sun from the IPC group with the help of the Printing Unions who pressured IPC to agree to Murdoch’s offer at the expense of Robert Maxwell who threatened redundancies among the printers. Murdoch also agreed for the paper to retain its allegiance to the Labour Party, which it had done until 1979. Despite growing profitability of The Sun during the 1970s and Rupert’s remark in 1969 that ‘I am constantly amazed at the ease with which I entered British newspapers’, Murdoch had turned on both the Trade Union and Labour Movements in favour of Thatcher. Mrs T returned the favour by not referring Murdoch’s acquisition of the Times Newspaper to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. As we all know Murdoch had again switched allegiance from the Tories to New Labour and back again in this year’s election. In a case of history repeating itself, Murdoch hoped that in return for his support of Cameron, his 100% acquisition of BSkyB would be rubber stamped. However the coalition with the Liberals means the final word rests with Vince Cable who is currently reviewing the matter.

Rupert Murdoch is also a serial patriot. In 1985 he became a US citizen in order to acquire the Fox TV network, which makes you wonder whether the marriage to Wendi Deng may come in handy for citizenship reasons should the Chinese government make any similar rules on citizenship and the ownership of Chinese TV and Media Companies. On the matter of British patriotism he has often vocally expressed opposition to the EU by making reference to ‘our sovereignty’ when talking on the issue of the ‘surrender of British sovereignty’ to Europe. However, despite Murdoch’s claims of belonging to some form of collective ‘Britishness’ he is neither a British citizen and for many years has avoided paying any corporation tax to the UK exchequer.

He also holds the British Working Class in no real esteem, holding a rather patronising, condescending, even pitying tone toward that social group which makes up the vast bulk of the UK population despite their consumption his TV and Newspaper produce in their millions. In a Channel 4 documentary Rupert once described how one of his elder prudish relatives had given him a verbal ticking off for the News of the World’s repeatedly sordid and voyeuristic intrusion into the lives of public figures. Rupert told how he had explained to her in mitigation that many of the people who bought his papers had very little in their lives and this was one of their very few pleasures.

It is well known that even though Rupert Murdoch does not write the articles that make up his publications, and though he has an editor that rules over the content of his papers, Murdoch is known for holding an almost tyrannical reign over his media empire. Former Sun editor David Yelland was quoted as stating that ‘All Murdoch editors…go on a journey where they end up agreeing with everything Rupert says. But you don't admit to yourself that you're being influenced. Most Murdoch editors wake up in the morning, switch on the radio, hear that something has happened and think, What would Rupert think about this?' It's like a mantra inside your head. It's like a prism. You look at the world through Rupert's eyes’. Therefore Murdoch cannot escape vicarious liability for the media climate created by his News Corporation titles.

As seen from Murdoch’s own past even the way he conducts himself as a person does not live up to the kind of scrutiny that public figures such as Arsene Wenger are expected to uphold by the Media. With regard to the maxim of ‘those who live in glass houses should never throw stones’, Rupert Murdoch own glass house is quite clearly the size of the old Crystal Palace, however this clearly doesn’t stop his media corporations throwing stones at public figures like there’s no tomorrow. Arsene Wenger has released a statement requesting that the press respect his privacy on matters regarding his marriage. Judging by the way the Murdoch press have gone about business in recent years he would be better off leaving them a message on his own voicemail in so many words.