Grant brothel visit exposed as Portsmouth sold again

Has the Nepalese businessman Balram Chainrai bought into more than he bargained for after taking control this morning of the struggling football club Portsmouth? After weeks of speculation on football fan websites, the Portsmouth coach, Avram Grant, has been named as the Premier League manager seen visiting a brothel in Hampshire before Christmas.

Journalists have been sitting on this story ever since the Sun newspaper caught Grant leaving the massage parlour on an industrial estate in the village of Horton Heath in December. Unable to identify him by name, or publish photographs of him leaving the brothel, for fear of breaking "creeping privacy laws", the Sun reported at the time only that "a top-flight football boss" had spent more than an hour in "a Thai vice den".

Now, after a judge allowed its sister paper the News of the World to break the story of John Terry's affair with Vanessa Perroncel by revoking a super-injunction against the paper, the Sun has felt emboldened to identify Grant.

The Portsmouth coach, a father of two who is married to Israeli actress Tzofit, is said to have "freely admitted" knowing the massage parlour was a brothel.

Although using the services of a prostitute in a private place is not illegal, the police could prosecute the brothel's owner for living off immoral earnings. To do so, they could interview anyone who has used the establishment - including Grant. An anonymous source "close to the inquiry" told the Sun: "We want to speak to people who have been there, to clients who might be potential witnesses."

While the Sun was figuring out what to do about its exclusive, the 51-year-old Hong Kong-based Chainrai was working out how best to protect the £17m he has loaned Portsmouth through his company Portpin to keep the club afloat over the last year. As a result, he took control today of the previous owner Ali Al-Faraj's 90 per cent stake in the club.

Whether Chainrai will be much interested in his coach's private life is a moot point. Observers claim he isn't even that interested in football - the move to buy Portsmouth was purely financial.

"Portpin have exercised a clause in their contractual agreement to take a controlling interest," a Portsmouth FC spokesman said. "They are taking control on a temporary basis to allow new owners to be found." ·