In the beautiful game, he won it all, but it when it comes to love, he's had more losers than winners. 

These days Manchester United and Wales legend Ryan Giggs is more famous for his skin crawling off field exploits than the work he did on the pitch. 

For years, the star who loved to parade his young children at football matches nurtured the image that he was a family man and model professional.

But bubbling beneath the surface, a different Giggs was running rampant: a Giggs who the world would learn was a serial cheater who thought nothing of multiple affairs whilst in relationships, even those involving his brother's own wife. 

Now, following the news he is expecting his third child at the age of 50, MailOnline has gone through every twist and turn in the former footballer's love life to reveal the full, untamed story of Wales' prodigal Romeo. 

Ryan Giggs has had a string of high profile relationships over the years  (Pictured with first wife and childhood sweetheart Stacey Cooke in 2010)

Idyllic beginnings 

Although Giggsy would go on to become one of Wales' most famous love rats, early on his romantic life there were signs he would be the perfect family man.

In 2007, Giggs married childhood sweetheart Stacey Cooke at a small ceremony in Manchester's Lowry Hotel. 

The pair would go on to have two children together, with the youngest Zach now a promising footballer at the age of 17. 

The happy family moved into a £3million mansion in Worsley, Greater Manchester together and seemed set up for marital bliss, but there were storms on the horizon, including one gale from the most unexpected of places. 

Brotherly love

Perhaps Giggs' most egregious act of cheating came when he embarked on an eight year affair with his brother Rhodri's wife behind his back. 

In 2011 it came to light that Giggs had been having an eight-year- affair with Rhodri's wife Natasha whilst he was married to Stacey. 

Natasha, who has two children with Rhodri, conducted the relationship with the footballer for years, even falling pregnant by him and aborting his child just two weeks before her wedding to Rhodri in Las Vegas. 

The pair first met in a nightclub in Manchester in March 2003 and Natasha spent the night with him while his then pregnant fiancée Stacey was at home.

Despite the fact that Natasha started dating Rhodri just two months later, the pair resumed their affair after a year, conducting illicit liaisons in hotel rooms and vacant properties she had access to through her job as an estate agent.

Rhodri - who shares two sons with Natasha - also said he discovered many of his footballer friends were 'at it' with his ex and even claimed one them fled a bar in Portugal instead of facing him.

Members of Ryan's family cut ties with him when the news broke, his dad saying he was 'ashamed' of his son while Rhodri, made headlines appearing on a Paddy Power advert mocking the former Manchester United man.

Discussing the he pair's first confrontation in 2011, Rhodri previously admitted that he'll still be there for his brother if he ever wants to reach out.

'Eventually he got the courage to meet me three or four weeks after,' Rhodri said. 'It was at a friend's house, he said it was about sex, it wasn't this, feeling sorry for himself basically and telling me how his contract was crap with Reebok, it was the s******t contract in the world, bearing in mind he's getting paid a lot just to wear trainers and that's the s******t contract. Well you f***ing signed it you d***.

'It was all like I'm going to get stick, get the f***ing violin out. That's him. I felt sorry for him, all the stuff that you've done and you're going on like some b****, just f***ing get away from me.

'He can ring me whenever he wants. I've moved on, I've got a new career working in schools. All the s*** that I've gone through in life, I've dealt with it on my own mostly.' 

Amazingly, Giggs' marriage to Stacey survived the affair but Natasha wasn't the only illicit item in his bagging area. 

Despite having an affair with Natasha and still being married to Stacey, Giggs still wanted more and so in 2010 embarked on a steamy seven month fling with Celebrity Big Brother contestant Imogen Thomas. 

‘We hit it off straight away because we had so much in common,’ gushed Imogen Thomas in a breathless interview with a Sunday tabloid at the time which she made under the condition she would not name the footballer. 

This was due to a gagging order that Giggs had made to stop details of their seven-month liaison becoming public at a time when his love life was under more scrutiny than ever. 

Despite Giggs' expensive £150,000 super injunction, details of the steamy affair eventually came out when Lib Dem MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to name him in the House of Commons.

Giggs is alleged to have recognised Thomas in a night club before pursuing her, and was keen to keep their relationship under wraps due to her history. 

She had posed topless for lads’ magazines, recorded a sex tape with a previous DJ boyfriend which leaked on to the internet, and had already dated Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe and Russell Brand. 

According to the footballer’s statement released after the scandal broke he and Thomas ‘met four times between September and December in 2010’.

She then contacted him by text in March 2011, which led him to conclude she was thinking of selling her story.

She allegedly told him ‘she wanted’, or ‘needed’, a payment from him of £50,000. Giggs agreed to meet her in a hotel where he was staying. There, he claimed he gave her a signed football shirt, but said he was not prepared to give her £50,000. She asked to see him again shortly afterwards, to which ‘he agreed with reluctance’ and provided her with some football tickets.

Although the position was ‘by no means clear’, the judge said the evidence ‘appeared to suggest’ Miss Thomas had arranged the two hotel meetings ‘in collaboration with photographers and/or journalists’.

Whatever the truth, Miss Thomas eventually sold her story through Max Clifford. Her ‘edited’ version appeared in the Sunday Mirror. 

‘He’s not like other footballers,’ she said in the interview. ‘He seemed very decent and private with good morals, and I fell for that.’

The end of the line for Ryan and Stacey 

After ten years, two affairs and enough baggage to last a lifetime, Ryan's wife Stacey finally called it quits. 

In 2017, it was announced the couple would separate after a decade of marriage. 

 The pair were granted a decree nisi at London's Central Family Court after a judge heard the marriage 'has broken down irretrievably'.

The court papers said 'the judge held that the respondent [Giggs] has behaved in such a way that the petitioner [Stacey Cooke] cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent'. 

To the question posed on court documents of whether the behaviour was continuing, she answered: 'Yes.'

In his response, Giggs, when asked if he intended to defend the case, replied: 'No. I reserve the right to refute any allegations that are untrue if raised against me in the future. However I do accept that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.'

He added that he would agree to pay Mrs Giggs's reasonable costs.

Katie Greville, domestic assaults allegations, and making the 8

If a shark stops swimming it dies, and Giggs is no different as he was soon on to another fling following the ending of his wife, this time with 38-year-old PR executive Katie Greville. 

This was relationship would eventually end in Giggs' being cleared of domestic violence charges. 

The pair met while Katie working for Manchester public relations agency Tangerine in 2013, she was tasked with helping to plan the launch of ex-Manchester United stars Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville's Hotel Football business. 

Miss Greville was keen to stress her own interest in psychology, saying in her police interview – which was played to the jury at the trial – that she quickly picked up his interest in her, in part from how he always made a point of remembering her name.

She also recalled how Giggs - then nearing the end of his Old Trafford playing career - was 'literally staring at me across a table' during one media interview.

After that, Giggs would repeatedly email her photographs of wherever he was, she told the jury.

At the time she was unhappily married to Damian Burke.

But when her mother Lynda asked her to get a signed shirt from Giggs, she 'knew that would be the start of something', she added.

When she met Giggs at a hotel for the shirt to be signed, she had just had an argument with Mr Burke and was 'feeling very s***', she told police.

They began spending more time together, and Giggs started to confide in her that his marriage was unhappy too.

In her police interview played to the jury in 2022, Miss Greville described her initial attraction to Giggs in the most gushing terms – he was her 'saviour', her 'soul mate', her 'knight in shining armour', she said.

'It was more than a sexual thing,' she added.

The fling eventually broke down after Katie accused Giggs of assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an alleged headbutt plus further counts of coercive or controlling behaviour against her and common assault against her sister Emma. 

During the trial into Katie's allegations in 2022,  Manchester Crown Court heard Giggs was nicknamed 'Randy Ryan' and the 'Welsh Wanderer' by female administrative staff at Manchester United because of a series of affairs he had with some of them.

Giggs' prolific womanising featured prominently in the trial at Manchester Crown Court with the former footballer admitting that had never been faithful to any woman he was in a relationship with.

Eight women were mentioned by first name only by Kate Greville in a heart breaking 'final goodbye' letter to Giggs, which she never sent but was read out in court.

A female member of staff at the club told MailOnline: 'Giggs was always turning up at office parties and showed a lot of interest in some of the girls. He was well known for it. 

'He was always at Christmas dos and leaving dos even though none of the other players attended. It was a bit of a joke in the office amongst the girls and that's why he got given those nicknames. Randy Ryan and Welsh Wanderer sums it all up.'

She added: 'He had a certain type that he went for and if there was a party at the club and some of them were going to be there, you could bet your last pound that so too would Giggs.'

Regarding one woman named by Ms Greville in the letter, an eyewitness recalled how she and Giggs kicked off their fling after leaving an office Christmas party at Old Trafford, Manchester United's home ground and went into a locked room.

They are believed to have continued their affair while he was seeing Ms Greville.

The eyewitness added: 'They walked out of the party hand in hand, right in front of everybody and were locked away in a room for quite a while. We all knew what was going on, they weren't trying to hide it.'

Another woman started having a relationship with Giggs when she was in the US with the team during a pre-season tour.

A source said: 'They were in Washington DC when her and Giggs got it together. The affair lasted for more than a year and went on at the same time as he was with Kate.'

Another woman helped provide entertainment on match days at Old Trafford when she met Giggs and started an illicit relationship with him.

Another worked in football PR.

While giving evidence during his three-week trial, Giggs confessed that describing him as a 'love cheat' was justified and that in addition to being known for football, he also had a reputation for infidelity.

Chris Daw, QC, representing Giggs asked him: 'In the course of your relationship with women, up to and including Ms Greville, have you managed to be faithful to any of them?' Giggs replied: 'No.'

The barrister then asked: 'If an attractive woman has shown you interest regardless of your marital status, are you about to resist?'

Giggs replied 'no' and agreed that he was a 'flirt by nature.'

His abuse trial also heard claims the footballer cheated on Ms Greville with eight women including 'Helen, Zara, Natalie, Suzie, Kelly and Steff' during their relationship.

The women who the footballer allegedly slept with were named in a 'final goodbye' letter written by Ms Greville, 36, in which she called Giggs a 'liar and a cheat'. 

She did not give their surnames, although she provided some biographical details. 

Among the women mentioned in the letter was an employee of Giggs' Hotel Football - which he co-owns with ex-teammates Gary Neville and Paul Scholes - who she claimed he was messaging about having a 'threesome' with.

Ms Greville also accused the former Wales midfielder of having sex with someone who is 'married to that cricketer now' and charming another woman by getting his 'guy at Harrods to send shoes, bags and dresses'.

The court heard Ms Greville never sent Giggs the letter, which was written on October 29, 2020 - three days before he allegedly assaulted her. Instead she sent it to a friend, who responded: 'Better than watching Jeremy Kyle that'.

In the note, read out in court during Giggs' domestic assault trial, the PR executive wrote: 'My gut has always told me that you couldn't be trusted and that you're a compulsive liar and serial cheat. I really did love you.

'I wanted to believe the things you told me but I know now that the same things you say to me, you say to multiple women.

'At least these other women have husbands, kids, boyfriends or go on to have them. I'm not so special. I stayed loyal and committed to you no matter what and what have I got for it? Nothing at all.

'I think you underestimated my ability to find things out. For five years I haven't really wanted to know the truth. Since Xmas there were so many things that didn't add up. It was a case of me putting my head in the sand. You're probably surprised that I didn't find out sooner.'

Ms Greville then mentioned several women by name, including one woman, Helen, who she claimed Giggs was in a 'full on proper relationship with' while sleeping with her.

Following the conclusion of the re-trial, in a 10-minute court hearing, the prosecution offered no evidence and Judge Hilary Manley said: 'I formally enter not guilty verdicts in respect of each of the three counts.'

Chris Daw KC, defending Giggs, said his client was 'deeply relieved the prosecution has finally come to an end after almost three years in which he's been fighting throughout to clear his name', adding: 'He has always been innocent of these charges - there's been very, very many lies told about him in court.'

Becoming a father for the third time at 50

Whilst battling Katie in court, Ryan embarked on a new relationship with lingerie model girlfriend Zara Charles, 36, with the pair going official in since 2021. 

They are said to be expecting their first child together later this year.

Insiders claim Ryan's ex wife Stacey has also given her blessing as well as their children. 

'Ryan was nervous about what his kids would think but they've got to know Zara over the last few years and really like her. They're happy because they know he's happy,' a source told The Sun. 

'But they've joked that he might struggle with the early mornings and lack of sleep. Ryan and Zara are thrilled at the prospect of becoming parents again, they have a very solid, loving relationship and are building a long-term future together.'

Another source told the publication: 'Stacey approves of Zara. Her and Ryan have been through a lot but they have moved on and she's only interested in him being happy, because that makes him a good dad to their kids. There is no animosity.'