Italian TV girl goes after Beckham’s golden balls

Has Silvio Berlusconi lost all control? A blonde TV presenter, Elena Di Cioccio, employed by the tycoon's Italia Uno station, has severely embarrassed David Beckham, now playing - with great success - for AC Milan, the football team Berlusconi owns.

Signora Di Cioccio pulled on a pair of yellow rubber gloves, strode up to Beckham while he was being interviewed by an American TV channel on the street in Madrid, and plunged her hand between his legs in an effort to grab his "golden balls".

Di Cioccio said she wanted to see how Beckham compared in the flesh with last year's photos of him posing in Giorgio Armani underwear - images which some claim were airbrushed to give the Beckham crown jewels more prominence.

She also wanted to see "how he measured up" to Armani's latest underwear model, another former Manchester United player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

"Off the pitch we have seen fascinating photographs of David Beckham in his underpants and seemingly very well endowed and even his wife says that he is well equipped and calls him Golden Balls," said Di Cioccio.

"Well the image may have slipped slightly as he has been replaced in the Armani campaign by a younger footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, but we wanted to find out if he was as well endowed as the pictures suggest or if they were touched up."

As the TV girl made her approach, bending down in the scrummage around Beckham, footage shows the player looking increasingly suspicious. But he moves too late - while his accuracy is still remarkable, he's not as fast as he was in his prime -  and Di Cioccio grabs him.

Beckham jumps back and looks at her stony-faced. As his minders bundle him away into a nearby hotel, and security guards grab Di Cioccio, she shouts out: "I touched it but it's small. David you have conned us all. What did you use cotton wool? It's all a trick."

Today Beckham was in training with his AC Milan team-mates in preparation for this weekend's derby against Inter Milan, the team now coached by Jose Mourinho. A spokesman for AC said: "We are aware of the incident and we have spoken to David about it but we have no comment to make."

Will La Cioccio be in trouble with her ultimate boss? "Most unlikely," a Milanese Berlusconi-watcher told The First Post. "Let's face it, this is just the sort of tacky TV stunt he loves.

"Of course, if the same thing had happened to Silvio, he'd never have allowed her to get away with that parting shot. She would have been paid to say: 'Mamma mia, it's enormous!'" ·