'Sven will never marry Nancy'

First she kicked Ulrika Jonsson into touch. Now she claims she is engaged and will marry Sven-Goran Eriksson after the World Cup, it is reported.

But Nancy Dell'Olio, the England football manager's girlfriend of three years, is not engaged to Eriksson - and never will be, according to some of his oldest friends.

"Sven has been married once and he has no plans to get married again," his friend Borje Blom, a reporter from Eriksson's home town of Torsby, Sweden, told the Evening Standard.

"I have known him for more than 15 years and he is very, very dedicated to football. His passion for the game was one of the reasons his marriage to Ann-Christine failed, and he does not want to go through all that a second time."

Another close friend of the 54-year-old, who asked not to be named, said: "There is no way Sven and Nancy are engaged. Maybe she said it to warn off Ulrika, but it is simply not true.

"I don't think Sven will ever marry again. His life is very well balanced between women and football. If he got married it would change the balance, and that is the last thing he wants."

The denials come after Ms Dell'Olio, who gives her age as 37 but is believed to be 43, reportedly told journalists: "Yes, it's true that we are engaged. Sven gave me a bellissimo diamond ring." She said the couple, who live in Sven's £2 million Regent's Park home, had been engaged for three years, and that Eriksson had recently proposed to her again.

"I'm delighted to be engaged," she added, "but I'm not going to tell you any details of the ring or the wedding. It's a secret."

Ms Dell'Olio, an Italian lawyer, was previously married to Giancarlo Mazza, a successful Italian lawyer, while Eriksson was married to fellow Swede Ann-Christine Pettersson, by whom he has two children, Johan, 22, and Lina, 14. His marriage failed eight years ago, and Eriksson dated Graziella Mancinelli for five years, until he met Ms Dell'Olio.

Yesterday Ms Mancinelli, too, cast doubt on an engagement.

"I don't believe they are getting married," she said. "Sven doesn't want her." Eriksson's friends' denials come days after Ms Dell'Olio's rival, television presenter and mother-of-two, Ms Jonsson, 34, admitted her affair with Eriksson was over. "I am no longer a part of this relationship," she said in a statement. Details of her other alleged romances - with a television sports presenter, a daytime TV host and a current Premiership footballer - are said to be revealed in Ms Jonsson's autobiography, due out this year. The book is also said to reveal how Ms Jonsson had an abortion after getting pregnant by ex-Gladiator Hunter.

Hunter, whose real name is James Crossley, told the News Of The World: "About two months after we started dating Ulrika got accidentally pregnant. It was just too early for both of us and she decided to have a termination, with my support. It was horrendous for both of us but especially her. Neither of us has ever said a word about this to anyone so I was very surprised when she told me she'd be including it in her book."

Ms Jonsson's Swedish mother Gun Brodie, who lives near her daughter in Berkshire, told the Standard: "Whatever she has written in the book is obviously what she wants to come out, but it is the first I have heard of it."