I know the name of the Premier League footballer who has taken out an injunction to prevent his private life being thrust into public consumption.

Or at least, I think I know. I’ve certainly heard his name mentioned over a chat at the bar.

I’ve inquisitively searched for the miscreant using a well-known search engine.

I’ve even heard it chanted at one particular football ground in recent weeks.

I know, but I cannot say, because an injunction prevents me from doing so.

The advantage of the legal block is obvious for the footballer in question, who pays probably his weekly wage to silence the nation’s bloodthirsty tabloid press.

Yet it does little to enhance the marriages of hundreds of his happily married colleagues, many of whom will have to explain away to their wives affairs they have never taken part in.

What injunctions offer them is a limited game of celebrity Guess Who, in which we establish certain details (male, footballer, married) but not enough information to make a definite stab. Does he wear a hat? Has he a moustache? Does he have an unfeasibly big nose? (For anyone who remembers Guess Who, that probably leaves Dave and Andy, but Zachary is still an option.)

Read Rozenberg's take on the injunction furore.

The result is a host of players wrongly assumed in the public’s eye to be guilty of mistakes, which they have not made.

My own hunch may be completely wrong, but still he is defamed in my mind at least.

Injunctions, (and indeed super-injunctions which do not even allow the existence of proceedings to be mentioned), make David Cameron feel uneasy because they seem to favour the rich and famous, although in all honesty the poor and uncelebrated are unlikely to make cannon fodder for the nation’s media anyway.

His argument is disputed by Carter Ruck, which often acts for those seeking to protect their reputation.

The law firm argues that anyone is entitled to call on the Human Rights Act to maintain their privacy.

Question marks over the rights and wrongs of the use of injunctions will continue, but for now all they achieve is the polar opposite of what they were designed to achieve.

While one famous face is protected, his peers and colleagues face the unjust burden of suspicion as we all play guessing games to find the real culprit.