Chelsea 'helped to silence Cole fling'

A Chelsea official helped to silence one of Ashley Cole's affairs, reports have claimed.

The Daily Mail says that the club's head of media Steve Atkins advised the footballer and one of the women he allegedly slept with on how to keep the fling out of the press.

Ann Corbitt, a political aide from Seattle, reportedly "panicked" when a journalist confronted her about the affair and contacted Cole, who put her in touch with Atkins.

Atkins reportedly then sent Corbitt several emails advising her to contact a lawyer and send a letter to the newspaper.

One message reportedly said: "You should be able to back the newspaper off by asking a lawyer to put the paper on notice with a letter along the lines of, 'My client is disgusted by the behaviour of paper and journalist as they are trying to bribe her into lying about Ashley Cole.

"'That the version of events is untrue. Our client did meet Ashley Cole with friends, was not alone with him, and has not now, or at any time, had any form of a sexual or other relations with him'."

Atkins reportedly also advised Corbitt to contact the law firm Schillings, who filed for the super-injunction banning the press from revealing John Terry's alleged infidelity.

Meanwhile, Corbitt told the News of the World: "The following morning [after spending the night with Cole] Ashley asked me if I wanted someone from Chelsea to walk me out the back of the hotel. God knows how these players' wives and girlfriends must feel."

However, Atkins has reportedly claimed that both Cole and Corbitt told him that they had not slept together.

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