Former England captain Rio Ferdinand launched a carefully orchestrated PR operation to paint himself as a ‘reformed’ man and airbrush out a series of extra-marital affairs, the High Court heard yesterday.

However, the Manchester United defender and married father-of-three admitted ‘succumbing to advances made by women’.

He even dismissed the notorious incident in 2000, when he filmed himself having sex with a young woman while on holiday with Frank Lampard, as ‘having fun’.

And he claimed that public references to ‘curbing his lifestyle’ and becoming a ‘family man’ simply alluded to turning his back on nightclubs and his Xbox computer.

When the latest of several alleged liaisons was reported in a newspaper last year, he decided that ‘a line needs to be drawn’ and took legal action over breach of privacy, he told the court during two hours spent in the witness box.

Mr Ferdinand, 32, is suing the Sunday Mirror for printing allegations about a 13-year relationship with interior designer Carly Storey in April 2010.

She met Mr Ferdinand at a party when they were both 17, and claimed they continued their affair after the footballer met his future wife Rebecca Ellison in 2000 and married her in 2009.

The footballer abruptly cut contact with Miss Storey by changing his mobile phone number days after he took up the mantle of England captain from his alleged love rat teammate John Terry in February last year, she claimed.

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