What a relief! Avram’s wife unfazed by Thai massage

Portsmouth coach Avram Grant may be in trouble with the tabloids for visiting a Thai massage parlour, as The First Post reported yesterday, but his wife claims she is totally relaxed about it. Tzofit Grant told reporters yesterday: "It's nobody's business what he does with his body - he can get Thai massage anytime and anyhow."

The 45-year-old former television presenter remained in Tel Aviv when her husband - previously the Chelsea manager - returned to England from Israel take on struggling Portsmouth. One of her friends told the Daily Mail: "She would never, never live in a town like Portsmouth. It's not nearly glamorous enough for her. She has to be in the centre of things, she needs to be talked about."

Being talked about is indeed a trait. As a TV host, she famously drank a glass of her own urine, live on air, to see if it had any health benefits. She then upset viewers by saying it tasted just like the water from the Dead Sea.

On other occasions, she immersed herself in baths filled with spaghetti sauce and - not at the same time - melted chocolate.

But back to Avram's massage, as revealed by the Sun newspaper. "I don't understand all the fuss," she said. "Avraham [his full name] loves massages, also Australian massage and Japanese massage, as well as having massages from Thai women.

"What Avram and I say behind closed doors is nobody's business. Not even our definition of what it means to live as a couple. If I suspect that my husband actually went to a brothel - that's just between me and him.

"I swear on my children's lives that I am not mad at him. If I am mad, it is because he does not get massages every day."

Grant has also sought to wave away the issue, telling the press the visit to the massage parlour - and the impending threat that he could be interviewed by police hoping to prosecute the establishment's owners under anti-prostitution laws - were "unimportant".

He is also said to have told colleagues at Portsmouth that the masseuse he saw in the Thai parlour "was at least 70 and why would I want to sleep with a woman of 70?" The Sun can no doubt be relied upon to check on that.