Chelsea are facing more drama surrounding the private life of one of their footballers.

The Daily Mail says Ashley Cole became the latest England footballer to become mired in a sex scandal last night after naked pictures of him were allegedly sent to a glamour model.

Sonia Wild, 28, is said to have received explicit mobile phone pictures of the Chelsea full-back with raunchy text messages. She replied with images of herself.

The episode brings fresh embarrassment for the national team just days after John Terry was stripped of his captaincy over his alleged affair with teammate Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel.

Last night, the footballer - who is married to X Factor judge Cheryl Cole - admitted taking the naked pictures of himself while staying in the England squad's hotel.

But Cole, currently injured with a broken ankle that could jeopardise his World Cup hopes, denied he had sent them to the topless model.

He said he had been joking around and had forgotten to delete the images before giving the unregistered pay-as-you-go phone to a friend because there was still credit on it.

Cole, 29, told The Sun: "I can't believe I gave a phone away that still had stuff in its memory. I thought I'd deleted it."

He said someone must have used it to pretend to be him - and attempted to play down the incident, saying he would laugh if his foot didn't hurt so much.