PUNDITS last night accused the Twittergate footballer of scoring a spectacular own goal with his bid to hide his life behind a superinjunction.

Public relations expert Max Clifford described the strategy as “an absolute disaster”, adding: “In trying to protect him they are making it more and more interesting to people who are responding to news that it is the footballer concerned.

“He is making the whole situation a farce and making the damage to himself increase. He has been very badly advised.”

Asked about the Sunday Herald’s publication of material that was already freely available online, Mr Clifford – representing Imogen Thomas, the woman who claims to have had an affair with the footballer – said: “I suppose it’s inevitable because there is such strong feeling. Everyone knows it’s the footballer concerned – I think that’s a reality.

“Some 80 to 90% of newspaper readers know the name of the person concerned, but no-one in the press can legally put his name out there.

“Obviously it is going to be very interesting to see what happens. There is this whole battle between freedom of the press and the right to personal privacy. What we have got right now is a bad situation.”

Ms Thomas, a 28-year-old glamour model and former Big Brother contestant, “feels very badly done by”, her publicist said. She is taking further legal advice.

It has previously been claimed that she could command a fee of up to £250,000 to sell her story about the alleged affair to a tabloid newspaper, though the figure is likely to increase as pressure mounts to overturn the superinjunction preventing coverage of it.

The footballer said to be involved was already named by thousands of internet users before the Sunday Herald published his photo. An internet search for his name immediately brings up claims that he is the player involved, and his own Wikipedia page yesterday linked him to the scandal.

Major news sites in the US, Spain and other countries had already published claims about him, and international magazine Forbes used him as an example in an article claiming that “filing lawsuits has a nasty effect of bringing even more attention to that thing that you’re filing the lawsuit over”.

The player is already pursuing Twitter for information on users who have spread his name.

In the Sunday Herald’s editorial, however, it wrote: “Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why?

“Because we believe it unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse.

“Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order.”

Lawyer Paul McBride QC, who advises the Sunday Herald, said: “Every child in the country with a mobile phone can now access Twitter or the internet and find out who this individual is, and the idea that the media cannot report it is frankly absurd.”

He added: “We have the right of freedom of expression and the right to debate these issues. I think the publication in today’s paper will bring the matter to a head.”