Jamie Vardy's wife Rebekah denies she leaked information about team-mates 'fuming' at Riyad Mahrez

Rebekah Vardy tried to ‘do the dirty’ and spill the beans on unrest in the Leicester City dressing room when star player Riyad Mahrez went ‘on strike’, the High Court heard.

The court heard Vardy, 40, contacted her agent Caroline Watt after Mahrez failed to turn up for training for the second day running back in 2018.

At the time of the exchange in February, four years ago, Mahrez was seeking a move to Manchester City.

In the WhatsApp message Vardy wrote: ‘Mahrez not turned up for training again. The lads are fuming.’

Watt suggested she contact TV reporter Rob Dorsett who was one of the journalists covering the story for Sky Sports News.

Vardy replied that she didn’t want the story to ‘come back on me.’

Dorsett subsequently tweeted: 'I'm told Riyad Mahrez failed to report for #lcfc training this morning. He has now missed two training sessions and a game, so is technically in breach of contract and on strike. Sources say he is depressed after failing to get his move to #mcfc.'

Under cross examination from Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne she said: ‘It was pretty much unheard of for a player to go one strike and not turn up for training.

She said the story of the turmoil in the dressing room ‘absolutely 100 per cent did not come from me’.

But she admitted that ‘in a fleeting moment’ it appeared from Watt’s response that she was ‘prepared to do her dirty work’ for her.

She insisted the information didn’t come from husband Jamie, Leicester City’s star striker. She said; ‘The gossip was already out there’.

In the messages, Ms Watt then suggested that she could ‘tell someone’ about Mahrez's no-show and Rebekah replied ‘do it’.

Rebekah told the High Court that she was ‘just gossiping’ when messaging her agent.

Mrs Vardy said: ‘It was speculation of just bits of information that I had heard and overheard, and also read in the press before.’

She added: ‘Yes, it doesn't look good there, I was gossiping about things that we already in the public domain. I was just gossiping.’

Mrs Vardy said she did not know whether or not her husband's then team-mates were ‘fuming’ about Mr Mahrez not turning up for training.

The court heard that her agent asked if the ‘fuming’ claim should be passed on to a Sky Sports reporter, but Mrs Vardy said he was not told.

She added that her husband ‘never discussed whether the lads were fuming’. She admitted that the message exchange with her agent ‘doesn't read very well’.

Mr Sherborne asked her: ‘You wanted Ms Watt to do your dirty work, didn’t you’ and she replied ‘yes’.

Mahrez eventually returned to the fold for Leicester but secured the transfer he wanted, moving to Manchester City for £60m in the summer of 2018.