RYAN Giggs is facing one of the largest sporting divorce payouts in British history – after his wife finally ran out of patience with his womanising ways.
Stacey Giggs, 37, stood by the former Manchester United player, even after he had an affair with his brother's wife.
The footballer, 42, also spent £150,000 on a controversial legal battle to hush up his affair with a glamour model. However yesterday it emerged that his wife now wants a divorce, and he stands to lose half his £40million(Sh6 billion) fortune.
Allegedly the final straw came three months ago when Mrs Giggs heard her husband had flirted with waitresses at a restaurant he owns close to his £6million mansion in Worsley, near Manchester.
The pair, who have two children, have been a couple since 2002 and had a low-key wedding in 2007. They are understood to still be living together, but Mrs Giggs is said to want a divorce.
Giggs earns around £3million as assistant manager at Manchester United, and is a director of 18 companies. Marilyn Stowe, a divorce lawyer at Stowe Family Law, said Mrs Giggs could be entitled to an 'exceptional' payout, adding: 'The starting point will be a 50/50 division of assets.
'Assuming she will take care of their children, the court will make a maintenance award by looking into the standard of living the children are used to, private school fees etc...She will do very well.'
Suspicions about the marriage apparently began to surface last November when Giggs attended a charity dinner alone. A source told the Sun on Sunday: 'Word got back to Stacey that Ryan had been flirting with waitresses at his restaurant and she's had enough.
'At one stage she told him to pack his bags...but for the moment they both seem to be living in the same house. She is upset to say the least and feels very alone.'
Giggs' brother Rhodri, whose ex-wife had an eight-year affair with the footballer, hinted that the rumours were true in a cryptic tweet. The message, which appears to have since been deleted, said 'smoke and fire comes to mind'.
Giggs' family-man image was left in tatters five years ago when he tried to hush up an affair with model and Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. He secured a super-injunction to stop his name being made public – despite his identity being common knowledge online.
It then emerged that he had been sleeping with Natasha, his brother's wife. The affair apparently began in 2003 and continued while Stacey was pregnant with their children, now aged ten and 13.
Giggs even paid Natasha £500 to abort his child weeks before she married his brother. Mrs Giggs apparently forgave her husband after the revelations.
But he was seemingly unable to change his ways.
'Both Ryan and Stacey promised to make a fresh start,' a source said, adding: 'Once the flak over Natasha and Imogen passed over, they began building bridges and it looked really good. But when things had quietened down, their relationship started to struggle.
'Stacey obviously has trust issues after what happened and that caused problems. And Ryan has said he thinks the marriage is over and that there is no saving it. It is over and has been for some time. They are not together anymore and it is definitely the case that Stacey wants to divorce Ryan.'
Previous divorce payouts from wealthy British sportsmen include golfer Colin Montgomerie, who paid £15million to his first wife Eimear in 2006, and former Chelsea defender Ashley Cole, who is thought to have handed £4million to ex-wife Cheryl Cole in 2010.
Yesterday a spokesman for Giggs was not responding to calls.
HIS FIGHT TO GAG THE PRESS
BEFORE 2011, Ryan Giggs was thought of as a family man.
But his image was destroyed when it emerged he had an extramarital fling with glamour model Imogen Thomas.
Giggs went to the High Court and a judge imposed a draconian injunction banning newspapers from naming him.
But the ban only sought to intensify the intrigue surrounding his identity, which soon became common knowledge online and was widely circulated on social media.
It also sparked a national debate about free speech, and eventually led to Giggs being named in Scottish newspapers, where the injunction did not apply.
He was then named by Lib Dem MP John Hemming in the House of Commons – where members' words can be freely reported.
As the star's lawyers pursued Twitter users, Mr Hemming said: 'With 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter, it's obviously impractical to imprison them all.'
To make matters worse, his sister-in-law Natasha later went public, humiliating the star by revealing how she regularly met the footballer for sex, even only a few hours after his wife had given birth.
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