WHEN your brother is the clean-cut Mr Nice Guy of English football, adored by millions of fans, how do you make your own way in the world?
If you are Wayne Lineker it was simple - do the opposite and become the self-styled party king of Brit holiday hotspots in the sun.
Once known as “Gary’s brother”, Wayne is now a celebrity in his own right with hundreds of young British clubbers queuing up to get a selfie with the boss of Ibiza’s Ocean Beach where he has his own champagne-soaked VIP table to oversee the daily parties over the summer season.
His beach club is a Mecca for celebrities too with footballers Jack Grealish, Peter Crouch and Tyrone Mings being regulars, partying alongside the likes of Maya Jama, Ed Sheeran and Leigh-Anne Pinnock.
But Wayne’s own celebrity status got him in a spot of bother this week as he was knocked unconscious by a thug on Ibiza’s party strip as he stepped in to protect a female pal who was being pestered.
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It isn’t the first controversy to trouble Wayne over the last 30 years as he built his party empire across the Med, with a string of younger girlfriends, jail time for fraud, and a strained relationship with his Match of the Day host brother.
While older brother Gary was scoring goals for Leicester and England, Wayne quit school at 14 to work on the family’s fruit and veg stall.
But Wayne had his sights set on bigger things and opened up his first Lineker’s Bar in Tenerife in 1986, trading on his famous surname.
It was a huge hit with Brit holidaymakers and its success helped him bankroll another venue in Marbella before he moved to Ibiza 16 years ago where he eventually opened Ocean Beach with his business partner Tony Trueman.
Dating requirements
Twice divorced Wayne, 62, has four kids from three different relationships, has been married twice and divorced twice, engaged twice and split twice, and even admitted on Celebs Go Dating that he has never dated a woman over 30 - despite being in his 60s now.
His last long relationship was with model Danielle Sandhu, who was 31 years his junior, and who he dated for four years until they split in 2018.
Since then he is never short of a bikini-clad girl to pose with at his beach club and in 2020 even posted an advert for a new girlfriend on his Instagram page.
He set out a list of requirements including that they mustn't have "baggage", must not be his age "as that would just look weird", must be able to cook, must love travelling and must be prepared to give up their job.
"You will need to spend the summer in Ibiza and the winter in Dubai with 2 weeks in UK for Christmas and new year with the families and holidays to the Maldives… No baggage as mine are all grown up," he added.
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"One last thing. Your geography needs to be on point as girls that think Lincoln is in Wales is not good."
He later said the post was “tongue in cheek banter”, and with his regular Instagram posts he has tried hard to overhaul his image which he is the first to admit made him “look a bit of a d***”.
That same year, he filmed himself pushing swimwear-clad women into a pool in a video where he would "pick which Dream Doll I'm taking on a date".
Wayne was labelled a "Grade A creep" over the clip by one Twitter user and another wrote: "This is foul - grow up."
One year on from the controversial posts, he shared a photo with Geordie Shor star Chloe Ferry claiming they were engaged.
They later revealed it was a joke but Wayne confirmed they were "seeing each other" and "having a bit of flirtatious banter".
Wayne later admitted regret over his social media posts, which had earned him a bad-boy reputation online.
I compare it to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland when he comes out and everyone runs to get a picture.
Wayne Lineker
He said he was trying to "take the Dan Bilzerian route" - referring to a US poker player who became known as the 'King on Instagram' due to sharing snaps from stunning superyachts surrounded by bikini-clad models and magnums of champagne.
"But it didn't really work for me," Wayne told Radio 1 Newsbeat.
He explained that the backlash was "really tough" to deal with and he had since tried to "change my image... not just for me, for my family as well".
Despite claiming to have changed his ways, Wayne couldn't help but brag about having dated Love Island winner Ekin-su Culculoglu "loads of times" last year.
He boasted: "I pulled her in Nando’s. She walked in and I was like f*** she’s fit. I actually air dropped her my number and I went ‘text me.'"
Fraud mastermind
But it isn’t just the hard partying and much-younger women in his life that tarnished his name. Wayne had to shed a criminal past which saw him spend time inside for fraud.
In 2006 Wayne was jailed for two and a half years for his part in a money laundering scam.
Between 1999 and 2001 he masterminded an operation to smuggle pesetas and escudos worth £220,000 into Britain, avoiding taxes of about £90,000, and was branded a “burglar and a thief” by a judge.
He definitely needed an image overhaul - and now says he doesn’t take himself too seriously as the self-styled “Mickey Mouse of Adult Disneyland”.
He told the BBC "People are really nice to me now,"
"It's a thing now isn't it? When people start Ibiza WhatsApp groups I'm the picture on the group image.
"And they have challenges on stag and hen parties - always number one is get a picture with Wayne Lineker."
'Adult Disneyland'
For anyone who's not been to Ocean Beach, when the doors open it's usual to see a stampede of clubbers dashing towards Wayne, who sits at a VIP table at the back of the club, and lining up for a photo.
"I compare it to Mickey Mouse at Disneyland when he comes out and everyone runs to get a picture," he says.
"But I'm the Mickey Mouse of adult Disneyland.
"I literally have to plan my day around it because it's got so intense, 500-600 pictures a day.”
While Disney claims to be 'the happiest place on Earth', Ocean Beach hasn't always been such a joy filled spot.
In 2021, it was reported that former Love Island star Theo Campbell was suing Wayne after champagne cork struck him in the eye.
He needed cornea surgery to repair a split in his right eyeball and 11 stitches on his eye lid back in August 2019.
Theo claimed the injury prevented him from 'earning big' in his career and he allegedly wanted "hundreds of thousands". It's unclear whether any payment was made.
In my opinion, Danielle cost me my relationship with my brother. Sadly Gary is no longer a part of my life
Wayne
In 2020, former Premier League star Joey Hutchinson launched an £8.5million lawsuit against Wayne's company after breaking his neck diving into a pool.
The ex-Middlesborough and Birmingham City player, who was left paralysed by the 2016 incident, was found floating in the club's pool and rushed to hospital.
In 2021, Wayne squared up to a partygoer after he asked for a picture and allegedly whispered "nonce" in his ear. The club owner kicked him out shortly after.
16-year feud
But while he has party icon status among the hundreds of hen and stag doos that flock to Ocean Beach each year, there is on person in his life who seems less than impressed - big brother Gary.
Despite their very different lifestyles, the brothers had always remained close, meeting up for a weekly round of golf.
But Wayne claimed that changed when Gary started dating his now ex-wife Danielle Bux back in 2008.
In 2015 he said: "In my opinion, Danielle cost me my relationship with my brother. Sadly Gary is no longer a part of my life."
Wayne claimed the relationship became frosty after Danielle and Gary visited him in Ibiza, and despite being best-man at Gary’s first marriage to Michelle Cockayne, Wayne didn’t even attend his 2009 nuptials to Danielle as his then girlfriend Ana Tanaka was not invited.
Wayne says the brothers started to speak again in 2017, telling the Sunday Mirror: “We talk now. We are not how we were years and years ago, but we speak more now.”
Celebrating his 60th birthday two years ago, Wayne reached out to Gary to invite him to the party, but later told his followers that he didn’t even get a text message back, suggesting the relationship is still more than a little strained.
But if Gary isn’t there to support Wayne after his latest drama, he has a wide family support network including his own children Duane, Sean, Tia and Freddie, along with Gary’s four sons George, Harry, Tobias and Angus who Wayne says regularly visit him in Ibiza.
One thing is for sure, it will take more than a drunken punch up to keep Wayne Lineker down.
